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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Full Proof</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
<title>FULL PROOF</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
"page-template.xpgt" />
"page-template.xpgt"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="header" style="padding-bottom: 56px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="400" height="48"/></div>
<div id="heading">
<div id="heading" class="centered">
<div id="title">
<h1>Full Proof</h1>
<h1>FULL PROOF</h1>
</div>
<div id="author">
<h4>Joe Donnelly</h4>
</div>
<div id="uri"><a href=
"http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.com</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.com</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.co.uk">http://www.impera-media.co.uk</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.co.uk</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;">
<img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/>
</div>
<p id="timestamp">2012-08-15</p>
<p id="version">1.01 - 2015-09-10</p>
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 2011, Joe Donnelly.
<p>All rights reserved</p>

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@ -39,43 +39,43 @@
" Joe Donnelly just gets better and better...
<em>Nightshade...</em>generates a spiralling sense of unease as the potent force of the forest is awakened."; -
<b>The List.</b></p>
<strong>The List.</strong></p>
<p>
" Joe Donnelly scaled the heights of sheer horror...Not for the fainthearted"; -
<b>Today.</b>
<strong>Today.</strong>
</p>
<p>
" Exciting and highly readable."; - <b>The Guardian</b> .</p>
" Exciting and highly readable."; - <strong>The Guardian</strong> .</p>
<p>
" Donnelly's description of the natural world is as interesting and clearly drawn as that of the supernatural."; -
<b>Observer</b>"
<strong>Observer</strong>"
.</p>
<p>
" Pulse-racing horror...very satisfying."; - <b>Glasgow Herald</b> .</p>
" Pulse-racing horror...very satisfying."; - <strong>Glasgow Herald</strong> .</p>
<p>
" Donnelly scores with unusually believable characters, well realised settings and thoroughly researched mythological backgrounds."; - Daily
<b>Telegraph</b>"
<strong>Telegraph</strong>"
.</p>
<p>
... . raises Joe Donnelly to being one opf the two best horror writers in the UK...probably the best horror novel of the year.";
<b>Fantasy Bookshelf</b> .</p>
<strong>Fantasy Bookshelf</strong> .</p>
<p>
Describing the book as 'fast-paced' doesn't feel enough, since the book has the feel of a movie treatment. The story really reads like a film- Editor,
<b>Ovi Magazine</b>.</p>
<strong>Ovi Magazine</strong>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Other <b>Joe Donnelly</b> books available on Kindle</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Other <strong>Joe Donnelly</strong> books available on Kindle</p>
<p style="text-align: center;font-weight: 900;font-size: 115%;">Dark Valley</p>

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<head>
<title>BANE</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
"page-template.xpgt" />
"page-template.xpgt"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="header"><img src="logo.jpg" alt=
"Impera Media Limited logo" /></div>
<div id="heading">
<div id="heading" class="centered">
<div id="title">
<h1>BANE</h1>
</div>
<div id="author">
<h4>Joe Donnelly</h4>
</div>
<div id="uri"><a href=
"http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.com</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.com</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.co.uk">http://www.impera-media.co.uk</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.co.uk</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/>
</div>
<p id="timestamp">2014-02-05</p>
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 1991, Joe Donnelly.
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 2011, Joe Donnelly.
<p>All rights reserved</p>
<p>The moral right of the author has been asserted</p>
@ -40,4 +41,4 @@
<div id="licensenotice">This work is copyright.</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</html>

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<p>Instantly Neil recognised the bull-tones of Donal Crawford, the old man's nephew who worked Saturdays. He was six foot four and built like a brick shithouse and as tough as steel bolts too.</p>
<p>Big Donal reached for the catch and shoved the window up with a ratchetting clatter. Fortunately the frame hit the safety lock when the window was only six inches open. Neil backed against the wall at the far side of the alley and hit his head a smart crack on the crumbly stonework, hard enough to hurt but not enough to damage. Big Donal was yelling non stop, all the phrases jammed up against each other and ever one of them promising lasting pain to whoever had tried to break into his uncle's premises.</p>
<p>Big Donal reached for the catch and shoved the window up with a ratcheting clatter. Fortunately the frame hit the safety lock when the window was only six inches open. Neil backed against the wall at the far side of the alley and hit his head a smart crack on the crumbly stonework, hard enough to hurt but not enough to damage. Big Donal was yelling non stop, all the phrases jammed up against each other and ever one of them promising lasting pain to whoever had tried to break into his uncle's premises.</p>
<p>In the two seconds before Neil turned and scooted down the alley, he saw he had been mistaken in assuming the window led on to the storeroom where the shiny shotguns were stacked. Through the six-inch gap, quite clearly, he saw the hairy, spotty thighs of old man Crawford's nephew and he realised that he'd tried to break into the outhouse where big Donal was having a crap.</p>

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<p>"Come on," Corky said. "This place still gives me the creeps."</p>
<p>Billy ground his cigarette out under his heel. Danny picked up a pine-cone and flicked it against Corky's head. Doug loaded his little slingshot with a smooth acorn and aimed it at Tom's backside. In a minute they were out of the trees that bordered Keelyard Road by the river and were heading up towards the bridge, the memory of Paul Degman's death fading just a little in the light of the sun and in the heat of the agreement which might have been yet unspoken, but was somehow fixed between them all.</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>March:</em></p>
<p>Sister Julia Gillies had come sweeping into the classroom in a rustle of beads and a jangle of keys. She was small and round and had a deep, almost masculine voice and an eye that could fix you like a spear when she meant business which was pretty much all of the time. She had a raised mole on her cheek with three stiff black hairs sticking out, as if her skin had trapped a fly under the surface and it was trying to work its way back out.</p>

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<p>"Too much to hope for," Corky said. "He'll turn up sooner or later. Anyway, who cares about him? He's as thick as shit in the neck of a bottle."</p>
<p>The bell rang out, muffled only slightly by the drizzly rain. They hitched up their collars and filed across the yard from the old toilet block. The rain was still spring-cold and blustered in up the firth on the west wind. Summer hadn't yet arrived, but it was coming.</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>In the back room of Cairn House, in the old abandoned surgery, Neil Hopkirk was dying.</p>
<p>It was dark in the shadows, but a slanted beam of light piercing between some boards over the window, white and solid in the dust-laden air at the far end of the hallway told him it was daytime. The occasional rumbling vibration of a truck passing on River Street confirmed it.</p>

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<p>"Hey, the idiot's gone ga-ga," Neil said, laughing. "Come on McGuire, stop fooling around and get back in goal."</p>
<p>It was two days before Jeff McGuire spoke a full word and by that time Sergeant Angus McNicol from CID had been up to the empty house that backed on to Boat Pend and he'd found the body of Mole Hopkirk. He later formed the opinion that Hopkirk was the lucky one of the two boys. The shock of it all had such an effect on young Jeff McGuire that he was never quite the same again.</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of Neil James Hopkirk. (Verbatim extract)</p>
<p>John J. Mack, Crown Office: "So you believe the boy took several days to die."</p>
@ -126,7 +126,7 @@
<p>Mack: "So in your opinion, what happened?"</p>
<p>Bell.: "The attack on this young man was designed and deliberate and savage. It took place over a considerable period of time, I hasten to add. If I may venture an opinion, it is almost certain that death was a merciful release."</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>Interlude:</em></p>
<p>"First real bad one I had to deal with," Angus McNicol said. "And that was the start of it, though nobody knew that at the time."</p>

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<p>"There's no hope now," Bernadette said. "Poor wee thing's been taken away and they'll find her in a ditch somewhere, raped and strangled and cut to pieces."</p>
<p>Bernadette's prophesy was fairly accurate, so it transpired.</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 1. 10 am:</em></p>
<p>"How did you manage to get away?" Corky asked. The other three had fallen behind, two of them struggling with the weight of the tent.</p>
@ -161,7 +161,7 @@
<p>"What's that for?" Tom asked. Corky grinned.</p>
<p>"We can get what we want," he said. "You wait here and guard the tent". Billy laughed and Doug showed his big teeth. They followed Danny, who was holding the fistful of coins, into the shop and sauntered up the aisle while he went up the counter and pointed to the string of big beef sausages. He checked the price, saw that he could afford two pounds, and asked or it. Mrs Fortucci behind the counter, the mother of Brenda Fortucci who was a class above them in school and gifted with the most substantial breasts of anybody in the whole school, counted the sausages onto the weigh-plate, wrapped them, and passed them over. She cocked an eye up the aisle, checking on the other two. Danny was just handing over the change when the back door opened. He saw a hand push in, quick as a wink and then the sudden grey flutter.</p>
<p>"We can get what we want," he said. "You wait here and guard the tent". Billy laughed and Doug showed his big teeth. They followed Danny, who was holding the fistful of coins, into the shop and sauntered up the aisle while he went up the counter and pointed to the string of big beef sausages. He checked the price, saw that he could afford two pounds, and asked for it. Mrs Fortucci behind the counter, the mother of Brenda Fortucci who was a class above them in school and gifted with the most substantial breasts of anybody in the whole school, counted the sausages onto the weigh-plate, wrapped them, and passed them over. She cocked an eye up the aisle, checking on the other two. Danny was just handing over the change when the back door opened. He saw a hand push in, quick as a wink and then the sudden grey flutter.</p>
<p>The pigeon exploded into the air in a panicked clap of wings. A small downy feather tumbled out and rocked slowly as it fell towards the floor.</p>

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<p>They were just boys out on adventure, glad to be away, glad to be out from under. The day stretched ahead of them, all the trouble and excitement behind them. They fooled around by the stream for a while, then climbed up the slope of the far side of the valley to the last fields where they hooked out a few pounds of early potatoes and some carrots, adding to their provisions. In half an hour they were beyond the line of the barwoods now and as they straggled up the natural track made by the cattle coming down to drink, a pair of dark eyes watched their progress from the shade of the tall spruce trees.</p>
<p>The eyes blinked in the glare of the sun reflecting off the water in the pool of stagnant water. The rays heliographed dazzling white light that made the eyes blink furiously against the glare, but they did not turn away from it. The light flashed sharp spears, fading out the colour of the grass and the thick ferns that crowded down the shoulder of the valley. For a second, the scene was fuzzed in monochrome, in layers of misty grey.</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>He was out of</em> this <em>time again. He was back....</em></p>
<p>The light was in his eyes, reflecting from the black space in the floating weed. An iridescent blue damselfly helicoptered in on impossibly slow wings, great black eye-spots winging seductively at the ends where they stroked at the air. The light was in his eyes and the beat of blood sounded like a mill-weir behind his ears.</p>

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<p><em>I am who am!</em></p>
<p>He reached for the mtches and lit the little lamp by sense of
<p>He reached for the matches and lit the little lamp by sense of
touch. It flared, sent up a sputter of smoke and then began to
glow. He turned to look at her, a small form, pale and shaking
uncontrollably, a frightened bird caught in a trap. Her eyes were
@ -139,7 +139,7 @@
<p>But there was no god here.</p>
<p>After a while he crossed to her.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>Interlude:</em></p>
<p><strong>"</strong>We knew, or at least we were fairly sure at
@ -219,7 +219,7 @@
<p>"I would have done to him what he did to those people. I'd have
done to him what he did to that poor wee soul under the bridge, and
I'd have made it last. And then I'd have buried him."</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>Interruption:</em></p>
<p>Angus McNicol's face had twisted with anger when he described in

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creep across his face, making it hot and red. It had been cruel,
dreadfully cruel, but it had been funny and the frog <em>had</em>
looked like Fat Sonia Kowalsky. The inflated frog was out in the
midle, vainly trying to cross a patch of weed. It would die in the
middle, vainly trying to cross a patch of weed. It would die in the
heat for sure. The flush of hot disgust, at the frog's torture and
at his own laughter stayed with him.</p>
@ -412,7 +412,7 @@
sun. Underneath him the red mud which had dried on the leg of his
jeans dissolved in the current and trailed downstream in banded
clouds of ochre silt like streams of blood.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 1. 4pm.</em></p>
<p>He watched their progress from the cover of the thick trees on

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breathing continued for a while, ragged and effortful, dreadfully
close in the dark. Then a footstep shivered the floor and the
breathing got louder.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>Derek Milne had turned back from the fence, got half-way to the
wall and then stopped and turned back again. He'd an essay to hand
in to Matt Bryson the English teacher, one which should have gone
@ -307,7 +307,7 @@
<p>"That I can't tell you, sonny," Mr Doyle replied. Derek backed
away from the fence, hot tears beginning to swim and blur his
vision.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>Robert Doyle, known to the pupils as Wee Bob, had reacted very
quickly when he'd got to the top of the hill. The two combatants
escaped and ran away and he forgot all about them when he saw the

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@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
twisted at an odd angle.</p>
<p>"Didya see that shot?" Billy yelled again. Doug, following
behind, still stripped to his sting vest popped his head over the
behind, still stripped to his string vest popped his head over the
fern tops.</p>
<p>"What's happening?"</p>

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@ -183,7 +183,7 @@
<p>"He waited until the maggots had hatched. He stayed until they
were covered in flies."</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>June:</em></p>
<p>A match flared in the dark, blinding bright, cut a flaming arc

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@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
in the light. "But the night's still young. We could have lamb
chops for dinner tomorrow if the snares don't work." Billy and
Corky had used some of the thin fencing wire to set a couple of
rabbit snares out close to the bracken and so far nothng had
rabbit snares out close to the bracken and so far nothing had
ventured into them despite the plentiful evidence of rabbits
here.</p>
@ -112,7 +112,7 @@
creepy. It goes <em>doom-doom-DOOM.</em>"</p>
<p>Corky paused for effect, his eyes theatrically wide and catching
the light of the fire. Billy sat forward, hooked by the imge.</p>
the light of the fire. Billy sat forward, hooked by the image.</p>
<p>"And you know that the rats are there, bigger than anything in
the Pied Piper. Big as cocker spaniels, waiting in the dark.
@ -126,9 +126,9 @@
<p>"Like Paulie Degman," Doug said in a hushed voice, now drawn
into Corky's tale despite the wink he'd been thrown. Danny shivered
and drew in closer to the warmth of the fire. He didn';t want to
think abot Paulie, not so far up and away from the street lights.
The water brubled hollowly as it tumbled between the big white
and drew in closer to the warmth of the fire. He didn't want to
think about Paulie, not so far up and away from the street lights.
The water burbled hollowly as it tumbled between the big white
quartz rocks into the dark of the pool which caught shards of
silver reflections on the ripples. Under the surface, it looked
black. It could have gone down a million miles. In the dark of
@ -165,7 +165,7 @@
his face straight. The fire flickered in his eyes.</p>
<p>"Would I lie to you Billy-O?"</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>"<em>Would I lie to you Billy-O?</em>" Corky had asked again in
the light of the day, after giving Billy a hard knuckle right on
the edge of his shoulderblade. "Saved your life, didn't I? That was
@ -185,7 +185,7 @@
sticking up like markers, grey and edged with a dark smoky
blue.</p>
<p>They crosssed the water on the stones and up the far bank where
<p>They crossed the water on the stones and up the far bank where
a narrow sheep track angled up the slope. Far behind them, well off
down the valley, a cock crowed, shrill and challenging, only
slightly muffled by the summer's heat haze.</p>
@ -473,7 +473,7 @@
when the boys approached and then settled back on the rotting head.
The black insects were already clustered all over the sightless
eyes of the heron.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 1. 6pm:</em></p>
<p>He had spent most of the day on the Blackwood slope, in the full
@ -611,7 +611,7 @@
silently up the slope and back towards the farm. He would come back
later, when it was dark, just to see what was what. There was no
rush now. He had all the time in the world.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 1, 6.30pm</em></p>
<p>"Just like Lord of the Flies," Corky said when he saw it.</p>
@ -915,7 +915,7 @@
Danny heard the harsh and lonely <em>kaark</em> call of a heron and
the sense of foreboding swelled along with the dragging remorse. He
knew it was the female, calling to its dead mate.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 1. Night:</em></p>
<p>The man came out of the shadows and into the moonlight, using

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@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
<p>"Looking for work, " the man said. He was tall and angular,
though broad shouldered and his dark hair hung down over his eyes.
In the warmth of the summer afternoon, he was wearing a log coat
In the warmth of the summer afternoon, he was wearing a long coat
with a belt hanging loose, the kind they used to wear back in the
fifties and it had seen better days. Over his shoulder, an old army
tote bag showed the stains of many miles.</p>

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@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
advice. I know where young Ian gets his stubborn streak. The new
hand, Joyce, is working well enough though he hardly says a word
and doesn't come in for his dinner, but takes it to the shed. They
moved nearly ten tons of early Pentlands from of south field,
moved nearly ten tons of early Pentlands from south field,
though Ian thinks there's a chance of wireworm in the late crop
since it's just been turned this year from old pasture.</p>
@ -69,7 +69,7 @@
<p>The Flanders poppy, each petal wide and veined like a
butterfly's wings, was pressed flat between the leaves of the book.
The red had turned to a deep brown. Beside it, just below the
script, done in pencil, was a small sketch of a barn own, wings
script, done in pencil, was a small sketch of a barn owl, wings
raised, legs outstretched beyond the heart-shaped head, talons
spread wide. The weasel was in the act of turning, a slender and
sinuous shape on a stony farm track. Both had been drawn by a deft
@ -77,7 +77,7 @@
Blackwood Farm on a summer's day. All of the years since it was
drawn had not diminished the action or the finality of the
swoop.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>He had watched the woman. She had looked at him with her
bird-quick eyes, and the pounding had started again in his
head.</p>
@ -164,7 +164,7 @@
He could hear the approach of the wings. There was a buzzing as
flies circled the chicken's severed head. His eyes started to
blink.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>It was as she expected. Ian had come in with a hand pressed to
the small of his back but it hadn't dented his appetite. He'd left
only one slice of the ham and two thick wads of bread, wolfing the

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@ -95,7 +95,7 @@
seen it happening, seen her man die right there in the middle of
the yard."</p>
<p>The policeman had almost totakl recall of how the CID boss had
<p>The policeman had almost total recall of how the CID boss had
worked it out, from Jean McColl seeing her husband cut down with
the axe. He knew the killer had used the chicken head to mark the
bothy doorposts and he could tell by the slant of the crossses how
@ -123,7 +123,7 @@
<p>"Dr Bryce, he said he was very close to the edge and it was
likely he'd turned the gun around and blown his head off, but while
we lived in hope, there was no evidence of that whatsoever. Kelso
dismised it as so much hog wash.</p>
dismissed it as so much hog wash.</p>
<p>"He asked the psychologist about the chicken's blood smeared on
the door. Bryce said the scent of blood had probably enraged him,
@ -143,7 +143,7 @@
Eyes, and that's how the name stuck, but in the squad, over that
summer when we were hunting for him, waiting for him to make his
next move, we started calling him The Angel.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>July:</em></p>
<p>She wrote fast, almost tearing the page in her hurry, crabbing
@ -410,7 +410,7 @@
leaving a white rag flapping on the bracket. He dragged her across
the tack-room and down the steps to the byre. She tried to pull
away but he clamped his hand on her neck, fingers and thumb almost
toughting, and walked her past her dangling husband. Her feet
touching, and walked her past her dangling husband. Her feet
splashed in Ian's blood. She tried to look to see if he was still
breathing, but the hand held her tight, made her face straight in
front. She felt as light as a feather as he propelled her across
@ -450,7 +450,7 @@
<p>And she prayed that he would come with the gun and stop the
pain.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>In the night he had taken the head and put it on the top of the
manure heap, waiting for the sun to come up. Every now and again he
would hear the voice whisper to him, faint for the moment, and he
@ -493,7 +493,7 @@
but then he blinked some more and went striding sunwards along by
the wall and down towards the trees. A half a mile down he could
still hear the crowing cock. The land sloped towards the stream, a
densely wooded valley here, downsteam from the high moorland
densely wooded valley here, downstream from the high moorland
pasture, thick with oak and beech trees. He'd been here before, in
the lush valley that reminded him of that other gorge, long
before....</p>

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@ -274,7 +274,7 @@
<p>"What are we trying to do? Kill ourselves? Haven't we all got
enough problems?"</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>The man watched them coming back to the camp. The boys stopped
up on the narrow gully side where a rivulet had cut the ground into
a deep and narrow chasm. They were out of sight round a dog-leg
@ -321,7 +321,7 @@
to the manure heap and talked to the head. It buzzed back at him
incomprehensibly. After a while, the moon rose and Conboy whispered
to him from a velvet sky.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>It had been a magical day right up until the fight and then the
magic had snuffed right out.</p>
@ -454,7 +454,7 @@
<p>Tom breathed out slowly, relief written all over his thin,
freckled face.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>"There's somebody here," Danny said later when they were heating
the can of soup on the fire. "I'm sure of it. I thought I saw
somebody in the bushes from up on the side when we were coming back

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@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
<p>"No matter what, the killer disappeared and the killings
stopped. Nobody ever knew why."</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>Interruption:</em></p>
<p>I could tell that Angus McNicol had spent a lot of time thinking
@ -122,7 +122,7 @@
<p>There were five boys just on the wrong side of innocence up
there in the valley that day when.....</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 3. Morning:</em></p>
<p>The man stepped out from the bushes and cast a shadow across the

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@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
<p><em>Come on you lot. At the double.</em></p>
<p>That nowseemed like a long time ago. Now Billy was on his
<p>That now seemed like a long time ago. Now Billy was on his
tip-toes, face contorted in pain. The tableau on the slope froze
for an instant of dreadful indecision, then began to move again.
Corky said nothing more.</p>
@ -554,7 +554,7 @@
<p>"I will fear no evil."</p>
<p>Billy's foot slipped on a dried ball of sheep dung and he almost
fell forward. The stranger's had pulled him back with a strong
fell forward. The stranger's hand pulled him back with a strong
twist and another yelp escaped the boy. Pain flared in his scalp
and tears sparked again in his eyes. If the man had let him go just
at that moment he would have fallen forward right on to his

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@ -566,7 +566,7 @@
into a kind of exhausted torpor. His eyes closed and his head
drooped just a little, finally coming to rest against the muzzle of
the shotgun.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>"Slitty eyed vermin!".</em></p>
<p>The man's sudden utterance woke Billy with such a start that he
@ -673,7 +673,7 @@
time, rising a little, falling some more and finally, after a long
time, it slowed and stopped. The fire continued to glow.</p>
<p>Down in the forest, an own screeched like a banshee moorland
<p>Down in the forest, an owl screeched like a banshee moorland
ghost and its cry tapered away to a hollow moan. Later on, with the
moon now crossing to the far side of the valley, something small
squealed and died. The glow of the fire lessened.</p>

4
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@ -792,7 +792,7 @@
<p>Ahead of him, in the morning sky, the heron was just a distant
shadow.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>Doug and Corky had been watching for him from the dark inside
the tent, knowing that he would not try a downstream run this time.
Danny had slipped out through the slit and although he'd moved as
@ -873,7 +873,7 @@
gun. The boy gagged, making a strange and somehow deadly rattling
sound in the back of his throat, but the man ignored that. Without
any hesitation he brought his foot down onto Billy's shoulder,
pressed hard, while he dried to drag the gun away.</p>
pressed hard, while he tried to drag the gun away.</p>
<p>"Leave him alone," Corky bawled, trying to overcome the
stiffness in his thigh and get to his feet. He tripped over a guy

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@ -178,7 +178,7 @@
<p><em>Danny!</em> Not dead Paulie, but John Corcoran. Corky was
bawling his name at the top of his voice, dragging him up from
where Paulie's face was wavering into the dark.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>The gun had roared. A sudden punch of sound that slammed into
Corky's head. He was only feet away, reaching for the barrels that
were raised up towards the far wall. Everything had suddenly gone
@ -305,7 +305,7 @@
<p>"Very good Dan," Corky said. He sat him down. Twin trickles of
blood were running down from each nostril and dropping onto the
tee-short, making hardly a stain against the deep red of the
tee-shirt, making hardly a stain against the deep red of the
fabric. Danny sat back but as soon as his shoulder touched the soft
moss he yelled aloud and twisted violently to the side.</p>
@ -321,7 +321,7 @@
He hunched there, seemingly oblivious to them all now, waiting.</p>
<p>The stillness of him was somehow even more scary.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 4. 10am.</em></p>
<p>Danny was crying. Tears were steaming down his face and he

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@ -186,7 +186,7 @@
close, though we even did a trawl in the local parish year books to
see if anyone of that name had been baptised, but still we got no
closer."</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 4....7pm.</em></p>
<p>"Unless a man be born again, and cleansed of sin." The man's
@ -236,7 +236,7 @@
<p>"Thought I was going to <em>puke</em> my guts," Doug said, and
he gave a strangely fearful grin. His big protruding teeth made him
look gawky. His sting vest was torn now under his armpit and hung
look gawky. His string vest was torn now under his armpit and hung
on him like a tattered net.</p>
<p>"But if you hadn't pitched it in the pool, Danny would have got
@ -551,7 +551,7 @@
<p>Corky held his ground and the man came up the bank. His shorts
had slipped, dragged by the weight of water. His penis,
unshrivelled by the cold water pushed out to the side, like a dark,
unshriveled by the cold water pushed out to the side, like a dark,
thick, club. Coarse hairs ran up to his belly and down his thighs.
He looked like a savage giant. He came out of the water, went
straight towards Corky who stood his ground until the man was a

4
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@ -141,7 +141,7 @@
dipping the now-stale bread into it and wolfing it down like an
animal. He offered some to Billy, but got no response at all. The
others sat down, closer to the tent, waiting for what would happen
next and the valley got darker as night begam to fall. After a
next and the valley got darker as night began to fall. After a
while, half an hour, maybe a bit more, the stranger stood up and
used one of the branches to scrape the potatoes from the fire. He
rolled the largest one clear of the others and trundled it closer
@ -444,7 +444,7 @@
trap. They could gnaw their way through their own foot, biting
through fur and skin and gristle and bone to get free, no matter
what the cost. Danny could hear the thrumming of the wire every
time Corky's teeth slipped off the thin brain and the jarring clash
time Corky's teeth slipped off the thin braid and the jarring clash
of his teeth as they ground together.</p>
<p>If Corky was desperate enough to try to gnaw his way through the

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@ -147,7 +147,7 @@
and they head off an that's the last anybody hears of them for
three weeks. They sent search parties out, but it was needle in a
haystack stuff over there. We heard the RAF, lost a flight of five
transports just forty miles from HQ, and one of them were ever seen
transports just forty miles from HQ, and none of them were ever seen
again. That jungle was thick, man.</p>
<p>"The Suffolks in the south, they got word. Some tribesmen came
@ -170,7 +170,7 @@
heard, he was in Chessington, where they take all the army head
injuries. After that, I dunno. Maybe it was Broadmoor or some other
loony bin.</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p><em>August 4. Midnight:</em></p>
<p>"None of your damned business, Conboy. You just sit there

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@ -161,7 +161,7 @@
His outreaching fingers flexed in the air as he pulled as far as
possible, reaching the very limit of give in the wire. He pulled
further and his leg slipped on the wet grass, shooting right out in
front of him. His toe hit the canvas back which slid away with a
front of him. His toe hit the canvas bag which slid away with a
tinny clank. Doug slipped back with a sudden, surprised gulp,
pulling them all downwards with the drag on the wire. Tom gasped
and tried to ease the stricture at his neck and Doug scrambled

2
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@ -585,7 +585,7 @@
<p>He was right below the tree, gaining some height, close to the
bottom of the slope. The other bomb was about twenty yards to the
right, beyond the lip of the little corrie, lying on its side, two
fins dug into the shale. It looked like a small beched submarine.
fins dug into the shale. It looked like a small beached submarine.
Corky sawed and again, three strands stuttered apart. The jerk as
the branch jerked straighter by two inches shook the tree once
more. This time, little stones bulleted out from underneath the

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@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
<p>The forked branch carried the bomb up, reached the end of its
travel, slammed against the cross-trunk and once again the whole
tree shook from the roots upwards in a seizmic shudder. A
tree shook from the roots upwards in a seismic shudder. A
scattering of leaves exploded outwards. The branch hit the trunk,
rebounded, slammed in again and stopped dead, but the bomb simply
kept on travelling, almost straight up into the air, thrown off its

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@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
/* Impera Media stylesheet v3 2012-08-15*/
/* Impera Media stylesheet v4 2015-07-15*/
body { color: #000; background-color: #FFF; font-family: serif; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: left; text-indent: 0; border: 0 none; margin: 0; padding: 0; }
@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ body { color: #000; background-color: #FFF; font-family: serif; line-height: 1.4
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@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ dl { margin: .5em 2em; }
table { font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.4em; margin-top: 1em; }
img { border: none; position: absolute; /* top: 0; */ /* left: 0; */ margin: 0; padding: 0; }
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@ -80,8 +80,18 @@ hr { border: 0; border-bottom: dashed 1px #000; width: 50%; margin: 3em 25%; }
#heading, #preface, #contents { margin-bottom: 6em; }
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#e, #timestamp { margin-bottom: .5em; }
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text-align: center;font-size:115%;
}
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padding-bottom: 1em;
}

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@ -1,25 +1,34 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Dark Valley</title>
<title>DARK VALLEY</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href="page-template.xpgt"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
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"page-template.xpgt"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="header" style="padding-bottom: 56px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="400" height="48"/></div>
<div id="heading">
<div id="heading" class="centered">
<div id="title">
<h1>Dark Valley</h1>
<h1>DARK VALLEY</h1>
</div>
<div id="author">
<h4>Joe Donnelly</h4>
</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.com</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.com</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.co.uk">http://www.impera-media.co.uk</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.co.uk</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;">
<img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/>
</div>
<p id="timestamp">2011-05-17</p>
<p id="version">1.02 - 2015-07-15</p>
<p id="version">1.03 - 2015-09-10</p>
<!-- <p id="version">1.02 - 2015-07-15</p>-->
<!--<p id="version">1.01 - 2012-10-29</p>-->
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 2011, Joe Donnelly.
@ -27,7 +36,12 @@
<p>The moral right of the author has been asserted</p>
<p>This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser</p>
<p>This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser</p>
</div>
<div id="licensenotice">This work is copyright.</div>
</div>

40
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@ -1,36 +1,48 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Shrike</title>
<title>INCUBUS</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href="page-template.xpgt"/>
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<div id="header" style="padding-bottom: 70px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="400" height="48"/></div>
<div id="heading">
<div id="heading" class="centered">
<div id="title">
<h1>Incubus</h1>
<h1>INCUBUS</h1>
</div>
<div id="author">
<h4>Joe Donnelly</h4>
</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.com</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.com</div>
<p id="timestamp">2011-04-11</p>
<p id="version">1.02 - 2015-07-15</p>
<p id="version">1.01 - 2012-10-29</p>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.co.uk</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.co.uk</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;">
<img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/>
</div>
<p id="timestamp">2011-04-11</p>
<p id="version">1.03 - 2015-09-10</p>
<!--<p id="version">1.02 - 2015-07-15</p>-->
<!--<p id="version">1.01 - 2012-10-29</p>-->
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 2011, Joe Donnelly.
<p>All rights reserved</p>
<p>The moral right of the author has been asserted</p>
<p>This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser</p>
<p>This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser</p>
</div>
<div id="licensenotice">This work is copyright.</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</html>

4
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@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ would have smoked and sizzled with the unexpected heat of it. A
small sound blurted out from him and the mother went into a sudden
spasm of shivering in response.</p>
<p>Outside the new one shivered too, suddenly tensed, responding
unconsciously to the subaudial sound.</p>
unconsciously to the subaudible sound.</p>
<p>The shadow moved away out of sight and the cold moonlight was
back again, wavering in his stinging vision. Something thumped at
the door and the mother twisted at the sound. He sensed her
@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ from under each limb opened. There was no volition, no choosing of
the mix he would need, the way he did with the mother or the others
who came close to be manipulated. This time it all came out, every
gland sphincter opening like a mouth, every muscle squeezing in an
instant of relief. He could hear the pheremones spray from him in a
instant of relief. He could hear the pheromones spray from him in a
hiss of mist.</p>
<p>The mother went rigid. It was instantaneous. She jerked as if
she'd been hit with a hammer right on the forehead and he gripped

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@ -237,7 +237,7 @@ caused that. He had no words and no real knowledge outside his own
self and the mothers.</p>
<p>But he was learning quickly.</p>
<hr />
<p>Down in the security ofice in Waterside Mall John Barclay
<p>Down in the security office in Waterside Mall John Barclay
offered them coffee but David and Helen were more interested in
what he had to show them. All of the screens in his office were on,
a bank of flickering grey and white squares showing all the views.

2
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@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ trip.&#8221;</p>
<p>Helen&#8217;s glow vanished. She bristled. &#8220;Don&#8217;t
come the smartass David. You should have been here and you&#8217;d
be telling a different story.&#8221;</p>
<p>She stoppedherself, realising it was the very concern that had
<p>She stopped herself, realising it was the very concern that had
spurred that response. &#8220;Sorry. Anyway, she&#8217;s on foot,
with a baby,&#8221; she waited for his eyes to register that,
&#8220;and a pram. She won&#8217;t be far, and it doesn&#8217;t

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@ -331,7 +331,7 @@ mind.</p>
<p>Out of sight, she heard a sucking, wet sound and her heart
slumped, giving a slow double beat that was shock and loss and
dreadful despair. She tried to move once more, but her limbs were
incapable of anything more than a slow-motion, directionlesss flop.
incapable of anything more than a slow-motion, directionless flop.
The baby cried out, thin and fearful and then the sound faded out.
Kate&#8217;s mouth stretched wide in a silent scream and all that
came out from between her quivering lips was a thick and ropy

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@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ she could not identify.</p>
<p>Go back! <em>Get out of here!</em></p>
<p>It came loud, like a physical blow, just as she pushed forward.
Her hand shoved the faded red door. It creaked open in a shudder.
She was in before she knew it. The bat-squeak subaudial sound in
She was in before she knew it. The bat-squeak subaudible sound in
her ears swelled stronger. It felt like a resonance in the bones of
her skull. The fillings in her teeth sang in sympathy, sending a
ripple of galvanic shock down her jawbone. Behind her she heard the
@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ pulled the pain out and covered it with a different pressure,
making her love him again. She had nursed him in the dark, and he
had fed, stronger now and needing more. He had fed ravenously,
glutting himself even as she felt her own strength diminish.
Another change was already boiing inside him, making his blood
Another change was already boiling inside him, making his blood
sizzle and his muscles tremble. It was coming so swiftly, hard on
the heels of the last one, that its speed confused him and he only
knew he had to feed fast now. Soon he would have to make her move

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@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ this? Had she been carrying a dreadful, wasting disease that
she&#8217;d passed on to the girl?</p>
<p>Was the baby the vector?</p>
<p>David shook his head, he&#8217;s seen Helen&#8217;s face in the
barn. The blod had drained out of it and she had been shivering in
barn. The blood had drained out of it and she had been shivering in
shock. She had seen the baby, and that had almost driven her
crazy.</p>
<p>What were they now hunting? All he had were questions. He had to
@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ the third day of her search for the missing girl, just in case they
were needed. She hadn&#8217;t told the girl&#8217;s parents that,
to spare their feelings. Now they would hear the worst. John
Marsden would face the nightmare of identifying his ruined
daughteris corpse.</p>
daughters corpse.</p>
<p>Had it not been for the x-ray&#8217;s of her upper molars, even
this first identification would have been difficult, because
Hartley discovered the girl had lost eight teeth in her last few

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@ -373,7 +373,7 @@ rushed at her.</p>
voice, jumping past the slavering, snarling animals. Helen
screeched an incoherent warning. The woman disappeared from the
other side of the fence.</p>
<p>Kate was falling. But a long runner of bramblethorn snagged her
<p>Kate was falling. But a long runner of bramble thorn snagged her
foot as she tumbled, spinning her in mid air. The world whirled.
The thing in her arms shrieked a glassy mental scream, more
powerful now in its desperation, stronger now since its change and

2
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@ -312,7 +312,7 @@ A powerful sensation twisted deep in her pelvis.</p>
aware of the reach of the thing. He had felt the sear of energy
radiate outwards and had not known what it was. But this close, he
could feel the mind-burn like a singe on the edge of his
consciousness and the power of it both amazed and aappaalled him, In
consciousness and the power of it both amazed and appalled him, In
that instant he realised how this thing snared the mothers. The
policewoman either ignored him or did not hear his blurted warning.
She reached again and without warning, the girl ran onto the ice on

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@ -363,7 +363,7 @@ was out of his eyes. Hands were on him, ripping and squeezing. He
had tried to push his mind into the man&#8217;s own thoughts, but
he could not force his way through. Something inside him had broken
but that did not matter now because the desperate chase and the
danger had brought on the next matamorphosis. It had come on him so
danger had brought on the next metamorphosis. It had come on him so
suddenly that he had not even recognised it. All he knew was the
enfolding cold and the collapsing darkness and he was down there in
the clammy black. Sensation began to ebb away from him. After a

2
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@ -637,7 +637,7 @@ breathing. She got down to the pathway between the trees, reaching
the flat ground, forcing her legs to move, though they threatened
to stop working and simply spill her to the ground. Helen knew she
had to put some speed on to get away from it.</p>
<p>All the while, throb the thicket and the bramblethorns the
<p>All the while, throb the thicket and the bramble thorns the
operator&#8217;s voice was scratching out from the receiver, but
Helen had no breath to spare now no time to waste. Her breathing
came in ragged, desperate gasps. The moon stuttered its light

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@ -5,16 +5,16 @@
<title>Books</title>
</head>
<body>
<h3>Books</h3>
<h3>Books</h3>
<h3>Dark Valley</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Book Contents</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='darkvalley/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Book Contents</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Full Proof</h3>
<ul>
@ -27,41 +27,50 @@
</ul>
<h3>Incubus</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/Incubus-title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/Incubus-contents.xhtml'>Incubus Contents</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Incubus</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/Incubus-title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='incubus/OEBPS/Incubus-contents.xhtml'>Incubus Contents</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Mythlands</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Mythlands contents</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Shrike</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/Shrike-title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other</a></li>
<ul>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/Shrike-title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other</a></li>
<li><a href='shrike/OEBPS/Shrike-contents.xhtml'>Shrike contents</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<h3>Bane</h3>
<ul>
<h3>Bane</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Bane contents</a></li>
</ul>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other</a></li>
<li><a href='bane/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Bane contents</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Mythlands</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='mythlands/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Mythlands contents</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Spellbinder</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href='spellbinder/OEBPS/title.xhtml'>Title</a></li>
<li><a href='spellbinder/OEBPS/bio.xhtml'>Bio</a></li>
<li><a href='spellbinder/OEBPS/blurb.xhtml'>Blurb</a></li>
<li><a href='spellbinder/OEBPS/other.xhtml'>Other books</a></li>
<li><a href='spellbinder/OEBPS/contents.xhtml'>Spellbinder contents</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

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@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 14 February 2006), see www.w3.org"/>
<title>Full Proof</title>
<title>Mythlands</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
<body>
<div id="text">
<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
<h3>Full Proof</h3>
<h3>Mythlands</h3>
<p>The town is on its knees. The jobs have gone. The companies have shut or sold out.</p>

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<p>
It had to be a memory. What kind of memory, he just didn't know.
</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Morning came. He was half awake, sore when he moved.
</p>

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@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
<p>
He backed away, terrified as the lead crow came winging in and landed on his shoulder, crater eyes festering and wet beak lunging for his own eyes.
</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
He was yelling in fright when Kerry woke him, shaking him by the shoulder. His eyes flicked open and pain sizzled across his skin.
</p>

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@ -177,7 +177,7 @@
Corriwen wolfed the small heap of beans, watched fascinated again as Kerry lit another cigarette and then she tried and failed to get the lighter to work.
The moon went into hiding again and Kerry dozed off.
</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
"Let me see your hurt," Corriwen whispered after a while. She eased Jack's shirt back and gasped.
</p>
@ -353,7 +353,7 @@
Corriwen clasped his fingers tight, then let go. Jack laid back against the mossy bank and closed his eyes. Whatever she had pasted onto his hurt skin, it
kept the pain far enough away to let him doze. He woke at dawn, and Kerry was grilling fish in the smoke from a fresh fire.
</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack started up, winced, groaned, lay down. It was already light but the pain was back with him again, and that sick feeling deep inside him. The sparkle
of the rising sun on the tumbling water hurt his eyes and he blinked against it.

2
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@ -436,7 +436,7 @@
<p>
"She's the Hag. The Morrigan. She'll lay waste to everything she touches, all she sees. But there's more than that. She wants more than Temair."
</p>
<hr />
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
It was dark now and Jack sat with Kerry outside the small stone house, each on a smooth stone not far from the river, but far enough from the falls to be
able to hear each other over the roar of tumbling water. Finbar the Bard had drawn Corriwen aside while he cooked fresh fish over the coals of an open

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@ -86,7 +86,7 @@
<p>
There was always a price to pay.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Mandrake had learned the forgotten legends of the Morrigan when Men fought the Fomorians and he knew <em>their</em> power had come from her darkness.
</p>
@ -181,7 +181,7 @@
Now the whole of Temair lay under his hand while the people who had looked to Lugan Redthorn for leadership worked under his command, slaving on the great
project that would finally free her from the fireglass prison.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Up in the high tower, the visions faded.
</p>

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@ -80,7 +80,7 @@
They were silent, each lost in thought while the water creatures moved them on, heading away from the faint glow of the rising sun that tried and failed to
pierce the mist. Kerry fell asleep, reassured that the boat would not sink, both feet up on the rim, head on his rucksack.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack and Kerry had sat together outside, each on a smooth stone not far from the river, but far enough from the falls to be able to hear each other. Finbar
the Bard had drawn Corriwen aside while he cooked over the coals of an open fire. The two of them talked, heads close, the girl's face angled up
@ -237,7 +237,7 @@
<p>
He smiled, a real one this time. "But like I said. If you ignore all the crazy stuff, this place could be a whole lot worse."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Now Kerry was asleep and Corriwen sat beside Jack at the prow.
</p>
@ -400,7 +400,7 @@ you. It's the puzzling out of riddle and rhyme that's the trick. Temair turns an
<p>
"You will, some day up ahead. Now you get a good nights sleep if you can, so you're fresh for the next step."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Corriwen Redthorn had listened intently as Jack related the conversation.
</p>
@ -414,7 +414,7 @@ you. It's the puzzling out of riddle and rhyme that's the trick. Temair turns an
"I'll help you if I can. There's always some hope," she said. "I had almost given up until I met you. And Mandrake's Scree had hunted me so long I was
ready to give up. You helped give me hope again. And so has Finbar."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The mist cleared abruptly, as if they passed through a gauze curtain into sunlight. Neither Jack nor Corriwen could say how far they had travelled, but
now, after hours in the white stillness, a forest loomed.

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@ -123,7 +123,7 @@
<p>
She recalled her last conversation with Jack, while Kerry was still asleep on the boat as it sped through the mist across the silent waters.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
"He talked to you too?" Jack had asked, keeping his voice low.
</p>
@ -184,7 +184,7 @@
<p>
That resolute expression chiselled her face. "But somebody has to do it. For Temair and Caledon both.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Now here she was, a prisoner, jolting eastwards on the back of a boar-hog, moving ever eastwards through a blasted country of burned farms and weedy fields
and the occasional bloated body of a grazing animal. This place had been scoured And soured. Now it lay empty and desolate.
@ -193,7 +193,7 @@
<em>She will devastate Temair&#8230;and the worlds</em>
. The Bard had said. It had already started.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
"Come on," Jack had urged. Without a pause they spun away, scuttled down the nearest alley, found the edge of the village and kept going in the darkness
while behind them the hamlet was beginning to burn, sending flames leaping high to the low clouds.
@ -293,7 +293,7 @@
<p>
"I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
They moved at first light. Which way. Jack closed his eyes. Since he had come here, come with the sickening, poisonous touch on his skin, the shee-bane, he
had been lost without his sense of direction. But today, as the sun began to sparkle through the side boughs of the coppice, he could feel it again. He

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@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
<p>
Somehow, a small ember of hope stayed alive. They had given her hope, and she would not lose it, not now.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The Scree were strong, and they <em>could</em> lift heavy things, so carting Jack and Kerry presented no problem to them.
</p>
@ -331,7 +331,7 @@
<p>
"You both got the girl," she whispered. "Now can you get her out of here?"
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The tower was high above the outer battlements. They couldn't risk going down the stairwell. Jack uncoiled the rope they had planned to use to scale the
Cromwath wall and fixed a good climber's knot round a stanchion.

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@ -136,7 +136,7 @@
<p>
"Good thing we're just boys then," Jack said, more lightly than he felt. "And a girl."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Mandrake's black rage was incandescent.
</p>
@ -201,7 +201,7 @@
<p>
Then he strode to the door, flung it open and started down the spiral stone stairway, ready and determined to kill something. Anything.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack woke, instantly alert. Corriwen was huddled close to the glowing embers. Kerry snored lightly beside her, both hands clenched on the handle of the
fine sword.
@ -372,7 +372,7 @@
Jack burst into laughter, a sudden release of tension after the battle, and then all three of them were doubled up, laughing uncontrollably, not knowing
what they were laughing at, but unable to stop.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
They slept fitfully until morning when they shared the last of the meat off the chicken bones, both boys homesick for a cup of hot tea.
</p>

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@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
<p>
She was the <em>Morrigan</em>.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The Bard had warned them that the forest was a dangerous place.
</p>
@ -107,7 +107,7 @@
<p>
They wolfed the food.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
"Here is the quagmire," Connal said, when they had eaten their fill. The Bard had a big pipe that looked as if it had been carved out of a solid bulrush
and he puffed it to a fiery glow. The smoke made Jack's eyes water.
@ -141,7 +141,7 @@
<p>
And three days later, all of it on foot, here they were.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The Morrigan rolled in her dark centre, reaching out to sense it again.
</p>
@ -152,7 +152,7 @@
<p>
She reached into the night, and touched him.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack was dreaming. He had fallen into an exhausted sleep, every muscle aching, and when he slept he dreamt.
</p>
@ -306,7 +306,7 @@
<p>
And he felt he would rather die than feel that loathsome touch again.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
They were three days out of the swamp now, and they had stopped beneath a spreading oak close to the winding road, a mile or so from a vast forest. They
had camped here, rather than risk whatever might be in the shadows, for the bard had warned them that Sappeling Wood was a dangerous place.

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@ -424,7 +424,7 @@
<p>
And when he pictured the bones of the Scree, torn apart high in the branches, he was suddenly very much aware of what the forest might do to them.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
They travelled a long way, in eerie silence, until finally he felt himself being lowered, so fast his stomach lurched. He plummeted down, crashing through
thorns to land with a thump on the ground. Corriwen lay a few feet away.
@ -528,7 +528,7 @@
An orange flower uncurled like another hand and a sweet heady perfume wafted around her. The flower swayed forward and clamped on her face, drenching her
in its perfume. The world began to waver and dance and her lungs began to burn.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Then a tiny shape leapt down from the height of the trees and landed right in front of Jack.
</p>

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@ -131,7 +131,7 @@
<p>
Kerry had no answer to that. He ran on and the big man came after him.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack was tiring fast and the horsemen were closing in.
</p>
@ -193,7 +193,7 @@
<p>
"With what?" Kerry took his belt off, looped it round the big man's neck, pulled hard.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack flicked his eyes to the right and saw Kerry shoving the man through the undergrowth. He had a huge sword in his hand, jabbed against the man's armpit.
</p>
@ -236,7 +236,7 @@
<p>
"Corrie Copperhead," he managed to gasp. "After all this time, we thought you dead, little cousin. I can't believe I see you here."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
They had a fort, protected by a palisade of spiked logs and the narrow gulley that led to it was guarded by armed men.
</p>

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@ -141,7 +141,7 @@
Scree came pouring into the redoubt. He tried to call out a warning to the fighting men but as he turned he got a glimpse of a shape coming behind him.
Something glistened in the corner of his vision and then a blow felled him flat and everything went black.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
He came to, lying athwart a heaving boat and was immediately sick over the side.
</p>
@ -267,7 +267,7 @@
<p>
Jack and Kerry dismounted the great horse and led the trapped and bloodied fighters into the depths of the wood.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Corriwen held tight to her cousin Brodick as his horse pounded northwards, smelling his sweat and the blood from the cuts where splinters had peppered his
face. Her cloak was ripped in several places and a clawed Scree hand had ripped skin from her back
@ -353,7 +353,7 @@
Corriwen's mouth opened, but no sound came out. It was as if a hand had clenched her throat and squeezed. The shock was so great that she felt the blood
drain from her head and the world started to waver into foggy grey. Brodick twisted in the saddle and held her tight before she fell to the ground.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The woods enfolded them in inky shadow and the men were afraid, men who had fought a savage battle against thousands of Scree were so afraid they could not
speak. Dawn was just breaking, but here in the woods, only a few paces in from the forest edge, it was all gloom. Jack led the way, with Kerry leading the
@ -446,7 +446,7 @@
<p>
"It's a hell of a neat trick," Kerry told him.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The Scree captain held a hand up. He was head and shoulders taller than the rest and built like a wall. His grey, scaly skin was scarred and puckered from
many a fight.

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@ -185,7 +185,7 @@
But none of them knew Mandrake was travelling westwards, at the head of a huge army, determined to find Corriwen Redthorn and her two companions and to
finish Alevin and his fighters once and for all.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
He sat inside a black covered wagon, drawn by half a dozen great-horses. His retinue of renegade chiefs and their men were outnumbered by the horde of
Scree who marched alongside, keeping clear of the horses. The hauling beasts whinnied and stamped and it needed riders on the outrunners to keep them
@ -274,7 +274,7 @@
<p>
The black wagon rolled on at a gallop, and the voices inside it continued to screech, while the Scree ran alongside, ready for battle.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The land was hot and parched; water was hard to find. Brodick had rested the horse in the shadow of a stunted tree while Corriwen slept fitfully.
</p>

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@ -183,7 +183,7 @@
<p>
Kerry shrugged. "I want to stick with you."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Kerry was long asleep and clouds covered the moon, but Jack couldn't sleep. All sorts of thoughts were buzzing around his mind. Thoughts of Cullian.
Thoughts of his father. Of Corriwen Redthorn somewhere ahead of them. But mostly he thought about the words in the Book of Ways, and the more he thought
@ -315,7 +315,7 @@
<p>
Declan said nothing at all.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Alevin and his men had raced towards the dam, covering the ground fast. Every mile took them ever closer to the storm that wheeled in the distance.
</p>
@ -384,7 +384,7 @@
<p>
The great army wheeled about, sending up grit and dry rock dust, and began to march fast back towards the east.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Alevin's men reached the crevice in the ridge where thousands of the people of Mid Temair had been enslaved. Since the great battle, they had been forced
to dig a narrow channel from west to east, and they were still toiling like ants, when the riders came thundering up the cleft, hooves splashing in water

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@ -121,7 +121,7 @@
<p>
Very quietly she opened the saddle-pack and with stealthy fingers, she reached inside.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Far in the depths of the Black Barrow, the Morrigan, trapped since the days of Cullian the Traveller, sensed the coming together of all the pieces she had
laid out.
@ -159,7 +159,7 @@
<p>
The time was almost here.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Brodick woke when he felt the cold point of her blade against his throat. His hand instinctively jerked towards his knife.
</p>
@ -370,7 +370,7 @@
<p>
And someone was following them.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
They tied Declan up and left him lying, still asleep, beside the embers.
</p>
@ -413,7 +413,7 @@
<p>
Then they were gone.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Corriwen was in front of Brodick on the horse, with the binding thongs looped around the saddle horn. He had placed her there, and she could reach neither
her own knives in the saddle-roll, nor his in its sheath. But she could wait.
@ -442,7 +442,7 @@
<p>
"For better or worse," she told herself.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Five hours later, Jack and Kerry would have missed the fork entirely, but for Kerry's skill. He was leading the horse while Jack sat in the saddle and the
little Leprechaun clutched the mane tight.
@ -479,7 +479,7 @@
Soon they came to an arch that at first looked carved by water, but as they approached it became clear that it had been built from solid blocks of stone,
weathered and patched with dry lichen. Some sort of script had been carved on it, but it was too worn to make out.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Beyond the narrow entrance, the old city was a labyrinth of ruins and crumbling walls. At the far end, an ancient castle on higher ground overlooked the
ruins.
@ -514,7 +514,7 @@
as ever. She nodded to herself, biting on the grief that suddenly gripped her, clenched her fingers round the dagger's hilt and then silently set off into
the labyrinth.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Deep in the bowels of the castle it was cold and dank. Darkness shrouded Brodick as soon as he stepped through the gate. Above him an ancient portcullis
hung from rusting chains that seemed almost worn through.

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@ -167,7 +167,7 @@
<p>
Before he could say anything else, Brodick and Corriwen came out together. Brodick had his hand protectively around her shoulder.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Kerry whooped when he saw her.
</p>
@ -244,7 +244,7 @@
<p>
With that he turned, yanked Corriwen's hair, and dragged her away.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
There was no sign of the horse Jack and Kerry had ridden into the ruined city. Brodick cursed under his breath. He looped Corriwen's hands into the leather
thong and drew it tight, pulling her wrists together, and when she was secure, he fixed the sacks of loot onto the saddle-hooks.
@ -316,7 +316,7 @@
<p>
"So I'll have the Redthorn sword. I have you. And I'll have her blessing. All's well."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
"Now what do we do?"
</p>
@ -368,7 +368,7 @@
<p>
"Now would you believe that?"
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Corriwen stayed silent, waiting for her chance. She eased the little penknife out and sawed at her bonds, keeping her hands on the other side of the horse
as she worked. In seconds, one of the thongs was cut through and she worked her wrists back and forth to loosen the rest.
@ -421,7 +421,7 @@
<p>
Now it was done
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
"Trust us to end up with two stinkin' backstabbers."
</p>
@ -554,7 +554,7 @@
<p>
She pulled back her cape to show them Brodick's knife. As she moved, the horses whinnied, pawed the ground. They all turned round.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Scree hunters came streaming down the hillside in a grey tide.
</p>
@ -641,7 +641,7 @@
<p>
Something flickered in peripheral vision and was gone before it registered.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Corriwen was completely unaware of Kerry's plight. She had followed the horse, trying to corral it in one of the passageways, but its fright kept it
clattering along old cobbled streets that twisted and turned as it ran southwards. She was running out of energy as it galloped along a sand-filled canal,
@ -678,7 +678,7 @@
<p>
She spun again and the blade chipped the wall a mere inch from her head.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The world spun in Kerry's vision. He thought he'd breathed his last when the great ram had knocked him into the air and he'd landed with such a thud that
all the breath had left him. Then he was up in the air again, tumbled about like a leaf in the wind. His chin hit something hard and his vision wavered and

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@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
<p>
He cursed himself again when he realised he should have gone for the dam first.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Mandrake marched the Scree and traitor chiefs back towards the ridge.
</p>
@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
<p>
He slouched in the wagon, while the Morrigan still hissed and spat in his mind.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Brodick was dead, stone dead.
</p>
@ -133,7 +133,7 @@
<p>
"Let's ask the book," Jack said.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Alevin reached the great dam just as Mandrake arrived on the ridge. He pulled up in wonder at its construction.
</p>
@ -173,7 +173,7 @@
<p>
"Destroy it now," Alevin finally said. "And heaven save Temair."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Mandrake reached the top of the ridge and looked down at the deep waters below. It was as if he stood between two black wells of hell.
</p>

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@ -185,7 +185,7 @@
<p>
Jack realised with awful certainty, that he was alone.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Kerry called his name, but his cry was swallowed up. One minute Jack was beside him, close enough to hear his ragged breath. The next, he was gone. He
turned to Corriwen, reached for her elbow, and found empty space. He made a circle with his fingers, called her name, called for Declan.
@ -202,7 +202,7 @@
<p>
The sound of running water.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
There was no reply when Corriwen called out, no light of any kind. She felt her way forward, blade out, shuffling her feet in case there were any pitfalls
or crevasses that might pitch her to who knows where.
@ -323,7 +323,7 @@
<p>
She felt a scream swell inside her, but her throat locked and nothing, not a sound, would come out.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Far away, Kerry heard the sound of running water, rushing water, but he couldn't tell which direction.
</p>
@ -355,7 +355,7 @@
<p>
The dead men began to push themselves from the walls towards him.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Declan's torch had died. He stood still, trying to sense any bearings.
</p>
@ -408,7 +408,7 @@
<p>
But by then it was too late.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The mouldering warrior lifted up a blood-scabbed sword. Kerry ducked under the swipe of the blade. It sang close enough to <em>snick</em> his hair. He
stabbed up with his own blade and the point plunged between dry ribs and rattled uselessly against a dusty spine.
@ -445,7 +445,7 @@
<p>
And a wall of water hit him and tumbled him backwards and under.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack was lost. In his head - he was sure it was in his mind - he could hear whispering voices, but he could see no movement of any kind.
</p>
@ -488,7 +488,7 @@
His mind understood the words. On his chest the heart stone stuttered faster still and he tucked the book away. He gripped the heart stone, felt it pound
in his palm, and as the pounding increased, he walked on, following its direction.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The rushing water slammed Kerry down, rolled him against the walls and swept him back up the passageway. He was upside down, scraping against masonry. His
foot found the floor and he pushed hard, terror expanding in his chest as the lack of air made his mind spin.
@ -505,7 +505,7 @@
<p>
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a hand clasped his ankle and began to drag him under.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack seemed to walk a long time.
</p>

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@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
Using all her power, she sent her black and poisonous thoughts out and east, to the great storm, until her presence reached the ridge under the swirling
maelstrom.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Mandrake stood on the ridge, feet straddling the knife-edge.
</p>
@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
<p>
He turned from the ridge and began the descent to where the massed Scree troops and the turncoat chiefs waited for his arrival.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
On the dam across the narrow ravine, Alevin was frantically spurring his men.
</p>
@ -98,7 +98,7 @@
<p>
But Alevin was wrong. He was playing right into Mandrake's hands.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack was moving in the dark. Only the strange, clean light from the heartstone allowed him to make out anything here, but he was running, fleeing the
horror within the obsidian block, running from the awful voice that still seethed like venom in his head.
@ -120,7 +120,7 @@
The tunnels seemed to go on forever, and the sword was becoming heavy in his hands. His breath came in short, laboured gasps, but he could not stop, She
would do anything to get the heart-stone, her key.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Corriwen was running too. She was blind in the dark, but she could hear the sounds of pursuit. The thing that had looked like her brother, but had warped
and melted and changed into something so vile it almost made her heart stop dead, that thing was hunting her.
@ -177,7 +177,7 @@
<p>
"We've just got to find Kerry. We can't go without him."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The waters closed over his head and bony hands tightened on his ankles. They dragged him under. Kerry panicked. He kicked blindly, but the grip was too
powerful. He gained the surface for just a second, gasped for breath, and oily water went up his nose.
@ -187,7 +187,7 @@
then he was under, struggling to get to the surface again while a roaring noise in his ears rose to a crescendo and when he could hold his breath no
longer, all his air came out in a rush and a freezing gush of water filled his lungs. He felt his body go numb.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack called his name.
</p>

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@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
<p>
"I think we should get ourselves out of here."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Mandrake had watched gleefully as the water roared through the cleft cut in the ridge.
</p>
@ -89,7 +89,7 @@
<p>
"Nothing can stand before me! <em>Nothing on this world</em>!"
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
The dam bulged further and the edges of the sluice-gate began to give.
</p>
@ -166,7 +166,7 @@
<p>
The dam collapsed with a colossal crash into the space where the lake had been.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
From the comparative safety of the hillock, they had watched the waters rise ever upwards until the Black Barrow was completely submerged.
</p>

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@ -70,7 +70,7 @@
<p>
"I heard that in an old movie."
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
By morning, the storm was directly overhead and Mandrake's hordes, thousands of Scree, traitorous chiefs and their horsemen faced Alevin and his fighters
and a raggle-taggle band of weary men and boys armed only with hammers and pick-axes.
@ -294,7 +294,7 @@
<p>
And the rest of the front line were cut down by Alevin's fighters in a swathe of blades and clouds of arrows.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
But there were thousands more Scree behind the entangled front. Mandrake was on his wagon, waving his arms, giving orders to traitor chiefs. Horns blew and
the Scree army swerved around their fallen comrades to attack Alevin's flank.
@ -319,7 +319,7 @@
<p>
He knew just where he had to go.
</p>
<hr/>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>
Jack and the others stood mesmerised, close enough to the carnage to smell the blood and sweat.
</p>

2
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@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:opf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf">
<dc:title>Full Proof</dc:title>
<dc:title>Mythlands</dc:title>
<dc:language xsi:type="dcterms:RFC3066">en</dc:language>
<dc:identifier id="dcidid" opf:scheme="URI">http://www.impera-media.com/fullproof.epub</dc:identifier>
<dc:subject>Thriller, Action</dc:subject>

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@ -4,28 +4,26 @@
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Full Proof</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
<title>MYTHLANDS</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
"page-template.xpgt" />
"page-template.xpgt"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="heading" class="centered">
<div id="title">
<h1>Mythlands</h1>
<h1>MYTHLANDS</h1>
</div>
<div id="author">
<h4>Joe Donnelly</h4>
</div>
<div id="uri"><a href=
"http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.com</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.com</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/></div>
<p id="timestamp">2015-07-15</p>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.co.uk">http://www.impera-media.co.uk</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.co.uk</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/>
</div>
<p id="timestamp">2015-09-10</p>
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 2011, Joe Donnelly.
<p>All rights reserved</p>

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@ -1,32 +1,46 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Shrike</title>
<title>SHRIKE</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href="page-template.xpgt"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
"page-template.xpgt"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="header" style="padding-bottom: 56px;"><img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="400" height="48"/></div>
<div id="heading">
<div id="heading" class="centered">
<div id="title">
<h1>Shrike</h1>
<h1>SHRIKE</h1>
</div>
<div id="author">
<h4>Joe Donnelly</h4>
</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.com">http://www.impera-media.com</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.com</div>
<div id="uri"><a href="http://www.impera-media.co.uk">http://www.impera-media.co.uk</a></div>
<div id="e">books@impera-media.co.uk</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56px;">
<img src="logo.jpg" alt="Impera Media Limited logo" width="200" height="24"/>
</div>
<p id="timestamp">2011-04-11</p>
<p id="version">1.01 - 2012-10-29</p>
<p id="version">1.02 - 2015-09-10</p>
<!--<p id="version">1.01 - 2012-10-29</p>-->
<div id="copyright">Copyright (c) 2011, Joe Donnelly.
<p>All rights reserved</p>
<p>The moral right of the author has been asserted</p>
<p>This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser</p>
<p>This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser</p>
</div>
<div id="licensenotice">This work is copyright.</div>
</div>

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@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ hands from the black cloth which draped the table and she grabbed
an end, slowly drawing it towards her across the surface. It made a
soft hissing noise, like sand in an hourglass. The little fat woman
folded it neatly and dropped the cloth to the floor beside her.
Behind her, the fire sputtered and the blare of light from the
Behind her, the fire sputtered and the flare of light from the
hearth threw the shadow of the high backed chair onto the far wall
where it joined the ceiling.</p>
<p>Even in the dim light, the table shone and reflected the faces

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@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ that was definitely a bonus.</p>
<p>The old woman hadn't been covered up yet. An ambulance crew were
waiting downstairs, and they'd have to wait a little longer. She
wasn't going anywhere. Hadn't been going anywhere for a couple of
days, maybe a week, Jack estimated, thou Robbie Cattenach's
days, maybe a week, Jack estimated, though Robbie Cattenach's
pathology lab would give him a better guess. no doubt. He looked
down at her. The sleeve and half the bodice of her black dress were
burned away, along with her arm, which was stretched out right into

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@ -377,7 +377,7 @@ easily documented. Marta Herkik's killing was different.</p>
<p>Nobody knew a thing. Nobody had been seen leaving the building,
nobody seen entering. All they had was a room that looked as if a
tornado had blasted through it and a dead woman, half burned,
beaten so badly she was unrecogniseable.</p>
beaten so badly she was unrecognisable.</p>
<p>Robbie Cattanach, the pathologist had brought his report in
almost a full day after Marta Herkik's body had been discovered.
He'd come sauntering into Jack's office, wearing a distressed
@ -639,7 +639,7 @@ asleep.</p>
It came creeping the way dreams do, the monster in child's
clothing, in a simple scene from childhood. Young Jack Fallon down
at the Garshake Stream, a wooden boat with a paper sail negotiating
the rapids at the pot holes, bobbing on the turbulence, a while
the rapids at the pot holes, bobbing on the turbulence, a white
flash on the green water then down over the lip into the froth of
the deep pot. Young Jack following quickly, leaping from boulder to
boulder, chasing to keep up, skittering on the edge of the falls,

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@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ blown by after an hour of darkness and the wind died. Overhead the
sky was black, frosted with the stars, clear enough to make out the
twinkling jewels of the seven sisters high over the Langmuir crags.
There was no moon.</p>
<p>The hard frost crystalised out of the cold air to rime the
<p>The hard frost crystallised out of the cold air to rime the
windows and lay mirror-sheets of black ice on the roads out of
Levenford.</p>
<p>Jack Fallon was still in College Street station, going over the

2
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@ -324,7 +324,7 @@ eighteen-year-old apprentice who noticed the shape dangling from
the gantry an hour after he'd started work. He got such a fright
that all he could do was hang on to the safety rail on the top of
the block and scream for help from the foreman who was down in the
hut. The ganger called the police and the fir brigade who had to
hut. The ganger called the police and the fire brigade who had to
take one of the clattering lifts up to the roof and manually wind
the gantry down to ground level where Jack Toner's body hit the
ground like a log, frozen stiff.</p>

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@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ shipyard. She knew nothing at all of the clothes he'd stolen from
washing lines at night, the panties and stockings which he kept
locked in the box behind the toolroom door, and which he wore in
the hollow silence of the hull-shed.</p>
<p>He never forgot their anniversary and they always wen out on
<p>He never forgot their anniversary and they always went out on
that day for an Italian meal in Glasgow. He belonged to no club and
rarely went out drinking.</p>
<p>In the past week or so, he'd been out without saying where he

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@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ passing throng. An hour later, the bridge was busy again, this time
with cars and a leavening of pedestrians hurrying home from work as
the shops and offices closed. Up river, the engine works was still
clanging and clanking and across the water, the high windows of the
foundry glowed read and from time to time the spitting harsh cough
foundry glowed red and from time to time the spitting harsh cough
of hot metal would tear at the still air, though by the time it
crossed the river, the cat-screech was muffled by the mist. The
foundry's massive brick chimneys towered over the old building,

2
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@ -461,7 +461,7 @@ of a routine job which should have taken minutes.</p>
the old wooden clock. It was half past three in the afternoon and
outside a heavy dusk was gathering under low clouds when Lorna
suddenly came completely awake.</p>
<p>Hear head came up with a jerk and her eyes flicked wide open.
<p>Her head came up with a jerk and her eyes flicked wide open.
She felt her breath catch in her throat. A pulse tapped just under
the curve of her jaw.</p>
<p>The voice came again. A faint gurgling rattle.</p>

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@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ had leapt for her throat. She gave a strangled gasp and threw one
hand out in front of her.</p>
<p>"<em>Mummy. I need you</em>." Her daughter's echoing voice came
clearly across the three yards of darkness. A small shape came
walking soundlessly towards her. Annie's vision swam as hear heart
walking soundlessly towards her. Annie's vision swam as her heart
fought to cope with the sudden pressure of the surge of dread. In
that watery vision she got a glimpse of a pale face and fair hair
streaming out. Two small hands reached for her. Despite her fear,

2
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@ -375,7 +375,7 @@ jerked back. This time, the grip was on one thigh. She felt hard
points drive into the thick muscle and a fresh pain detonated in
her hip. The darkness swooped alarmingly. One second she was
dangling feet down, and the next she was upside down in the shaft.
The thing stated to climb again, jerking from side to side on the
The thing started to climb again, jerking from side to side on the
walls of the duct, moving with ferocious speed. Carol's piercing
screams followed it up into the dark heights.</p>
<p>Down by the lift door, they heard the ululating, echoing cries

2
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@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ buildings which had been open, or had an obvious entry. And they
had been looking for a boy, nothing else.</p>
<p>Jack waited until the red light on the coffee-maker went out,
sifting few connected facts he had, weaving the scant threads
togethe ther. He poured a cup, spooned three heaps of demerara into
together. He poured a cup, spooned three heaps of demerara into
the brew and started to sip. It tasted wonderful, strong and thick,
and in addition, the pain in his throat had subsided
significantly.</p>

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@ -831,7 +831,7 @@ the cross-bar when the others found him.</p>
<p>"Me too then."</p>
<p>They all selected bikes, hauled them out of their stands and
brought them to the wall. Jed clambered up, with end of the rope
between his teeth. Carefully the threaded his way though the
between his teeth. Carefully he threaded his way though the
girders, making sure he looped the rope under them when he crossed,
so that it dangled down to the group below. Chalky followed him
through the wide skylight and then they braced themselves and began

2
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@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ surface and leaned across, towering over the man.</p>
<p>"I've got no time for any lip, and I'm in no mood for backchat,"
he said, staring down into the barman's eyes. "Get some coffees.
Now. And make it snappy." The man nodded. Jack went back to the
seated group. The small man man shrugged and hit the button on the
seated group. The small man shrugged and hit the button on the
coffee maker.</p>
<p>The boy was quite lucid when he spoke, but his voice had the
shaky hesitation which is quite normal in people who are in

2
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@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
<h2>24</h2>
<p>The alarm woke him from a deep sleep while it was still dark.
Jack crawled out of bed groping for his dressing gown, feeling
drugged and dopy. The kitchen was cold and the glass on the window
drugged and dopey. The kitchen was cold and the glass on the window
to the back garden was glittering with a latticework of frost. A
faint sliver of moon on the horizon sent a glimmer of silver light
onto the snow which had stacked up against the fence. The garden

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@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ hollow arched entrance of the belltower.</p>
which had been built at the turn of the century by a fiery
monsignor from old Donegal for the greater glory of God. The
Irish-Catholic families of the parish had been cajoled and
co-erced, with threats of damnation, excommunication or years in
coerced, with threats of damnation, excommunication or years in
purgatory, into donating money they could ill-afford because of the
lack of work and their burgeoning families to pay for the Italian
marble altar, whinstone buttresses and beautifully masoned

2
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@ -343,7 +343,7 @@ shipbuilding had all but obliterated the Clyde from the forefront
of marinecraft and made it just a memory with only gaunt black
cranes on the skyline as a reminder of the boom days. Now he was in
a growth industry, and spent much of his time on roofs and up
ladders installing satellite diches which were beginning to
ladders installing satellite dishes which were beginning to
proliferate like mushrooms on walls and houses throughout the
town.</p>
<p>Despite the wail of sirens in the frosty morning, and despite

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@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
<div id="text">
<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
<h2>37</h2>
<p>She could sense it like the sub-audial chitter of bats, a
<p>She could sense it like the sub-audible chitter of bats, a
tingling whisper felt, rather than heard, at the base of her skull
where the messages from her brain shunted down the length of her
spine. It was like the stealthy scrape of chitinous nails on stone,

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@ -370,7 +370,7 @@ light had seared the gloom.</p>
thudded shut and a shriek of agony brayed out in a high, ululating
shudder.</p>
<p>Lorna's own eyes flooded with tears. She wiped her sleeve across
them, shaking hear head to clear her vision. Then she saw it in the
them, shaking her head to clear her vision. Then she saw it in the
light.</p>
<p>It was a nightmare creature. Its squat body was humped and
warted. Oddly bent bones, like deformed ribs poked out against a
@ -474,7 +474,7 @@ Lorna.</p>
with a jarring thump, hard enough to clash his teeth together. Davy
tumbled out and rolled.</p>
<p>The thing that O'Day had become lunged forward and clamped its
hands around Lorna's neck. She made a loud gulpin sound.</p>
hands around Lorna's neck. She made a loud gulping sound.</p>
<p>Jack turned over, unable to take his eyes of the scene. He
groped for anything on the floor and by a sheer miracle found the
scaffolding bar that he'd used up close to the roof. He used it to

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@ -276,7 +276,7 @@ of all of the victims, starting with Marta Herkik. The fiscal
recorded five verdicts of suicide and one case, that of Jock Toner,
of death by misadventure. Timmy Doyle, Kelly Campbell and the
others with the exception of old George Wilkie who was still posted
missing, and including the the other McCann children and their
missing, and including the other McCann children and their
father who died in the fire in Murroch Road, were found to have
been unlawfully killed by person or persons yet unknown.</p>
<p>The storm blew itself out on the morning after Jack and Lorna
@ -294,7 +294,7 @@ comatose for another two weeks and finally began to stir under the
sheet, still emaciated and pallid, but not as corpselike as he had
been. A shallow concave depression reached from his ear to the back
of the skull, showing where Jack had smashed him with the bar.</p>
<p>Several doctors, including two consultant neorologists put him
<p>Several doctors, including two consultant neurologists put him
under a battery of examinations. O'Day was awake, but as they say,
though the lights were on, there was nobody home. He was unable to
speak properly, only managing a few grunted vowels. He had to be

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<meta name="generator" content=
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<title>Dedication</title>
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<h3>About the author</h3>
<p>Joe Donnelly was born in Glasgow, in Scotland, close to the
River Clyde, but at a very young age he came to live in Dumbarton,
which is some miles from the city and close to Loch Lomond, Ben
Lomond and the Scottish Highlands.</p>
<p>At the age of 18, he decided to become a journalist and found a
job in the Helensburgh Advertiser, a local paper in a neighbouring
town where he learned the first essential of writing: how to type.
Quickly.</p>
<p>A few years later, at the age of 22, he became editor of his
local newspaper, the Lennox Herald in Dumbarton, before moving to
the Evening Times and then the Sunday mail in Glasgow where he
became an investigative journalist.</p>
<p>During his career he won several awards for newspaper work
including Reporter of the Year, Campaigning Journalist and Consumer
Journalist.</p>
<p>It was while working in newspapers that he wrote his first
novel, <em>Bane</em>, an adult chiller, which was followed by eight
other novels, mostly set in and around the West of Scotland and
loosely based on Celtic Mythology.</p>
<p>This was followed by <em>Stone</em>, <em>The Shee</em>,
<em>Shrike</em>, <em>Still Life</em>, <em>Havock Junction</em>,
<em>Incubus</em> and <em>Dark Valley</em>.</p>
<p>Recently he decided to write for children, although he says his
books are aimed at "young people of all ages, those with some
adventure in their soul."</p>
<p>The <em>Jack Flint Trilogy</em> is his first venture at telling
stories for the young at heart.</p>
<p>Joe is now working on two novels: A chiller for adults, and
another rollicking adventure for young people, based on Nordic
mythology.</p>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
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<title>Spellbinder</title>
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<h3>Spellbinder</h3>
<p>The town is on its knees. The jobs have gone. The companies have shut or sold out.</p>
<p>The only distillery is about to close just after the last batch of high-octane vintage scotch is bottled and
shipped.</p>
<p>But that batch is 250,000 gallons of full-proof whisky. It’s worth MILLIONS.</p>
<p>And it’s there for the taking.</p>
<p>All it takes is somebody with an idea, and some friends willing to take a big risk.</p>
<p>It’s the only thing that can turn a ghost town into a boom-town.</p>
<p>As long as you can outwit the cops. And the customs men. And the hoods who want it all.</p>
<p>It’s a tall order, but somebody has to do it. A man with a masterplan, and some crazy friends.</p>
<p>And nobody said you can’t have fun when you set out to save a town from the scrap-heap!</p>
<p>Joe Donnelly’s Full Proof is a roistering thriller, as high-octane as the scotch.</p>
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<title>Spellbinder - Chapter 1</title>
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<h1>1</h1><p>Corriwen Redthorn had vanished into another world.</p>
<p>She had tumbled, <em>was thrown</em>, through the space between the standing stones and she was gone. Disappeared.</p>
<p>Jack Flint lurched from the far side of the ring of stones. Kerry Malone had his arm around him, bracing him up. But for that, both of them would have sunk to the ground.</p>
<p>They were hurt. They were bruised and bloodied and Jack felt as if every inch of his body had been beaten. Blood was matted on Kerry's shoulder where the thing had hit him, slammed him into the air.</p>
<p>The thing. The <em>Morrigan</em>. </p>
<p>As old as time, as foul as sin, she had harried them across the dead lands, rending the very rocks with her fury. They had made it to the ring of stones where they had started and she had come sweeping after them, a shade within a shadow; screeching for vengeance.</p>
<p>They had fought her and she had almost killed them both. But they had survived and she was gone, still screeching, all the way down into the infinity of dark under the capstone.</p>
<p>But before it had sucked her down she had reached out and caught him by the leg, claws digging into his bones, her rage as cold as death, dragging him down with her into the eternal black.</p>
<p>Then Corriwen Redthorn was in front on him again and both knives were out, flashing red in the hideous moonlight. She dived headlong and slashed at the claw gripping Jack's leg. The second knife flickered past him and pierced a monstrous red eye. Something burst wetly and the demon-thing's sudden agony blasted out of her and the standing stones shuddered in their foundations.</p>
<p>And then the Morrigan was gone, screaming as she fell. Screaming so long that it seemed to take forever before the hideous cry faded to nothing.</p>
<p>But in the instant before the grip broke on Jack's leg, her last desperate act had been to reach out, fast as a snake, and hit Corriwen a tremendous blow which slammed her into the air.</p>
<p>And now, in the aftermath, Corriwen had vanished.</p>
<p>Kerry groaned aloud. Jack could see the bruise swelling across his cheek. He had taken a hard blow, but his eyes were still bright and somehow fierce.</p>
<p>"We beat the bitch," he said. </p>
<p>"We did. And I think I got us back to <em>before.</em> I mean, before it all went crazy."</p>
<p>He paused in mid sentence.</p>
<p>"Where is she?"</p>
<p>"I told you. She's gone."</p>
<p>"No," Jack said. "Where's Corriwen?"</p>
<p>They both turned round quickly.</p>
<p>"She was&#8230;" Kerry started, then stopped. "I think she was here. I was running with that thing coming on like a train. Then I threw the heartstone to you and she hit me such a wallop I went ass for elbow."</p>
<p>"Corriwen was hit too," Jack said. His heart lurched. "She was hit. I saw it." He started to walk, ignoring the pain and they helped each other to their feet.</p>
<p>"She was hit really hard and she went flying." He took a slow step and then another in the direction Corriwen had tumbled when the Morrigan had flipped her away, all the time expecting to find her broken body against one of the standing stones. The final blow from the Morrigan must have been devastating.</p>
<p>He searched around, moving from one stone to the other before he saw it. There on the soft earth, was a small depression where she had landed and rolled, scuff marks in the thin grass.</p>
<p>They continued onwards, towards the space between two standing stones.</p>
<p>Then they vanished.</p>
<p>Jack looked at Kerry.</p>
<p>"She must have been thrown through," Kerry said. Regret and relief were struggling in his expression. "Back home to Temair."</p>
<p>Jack reached for his friend's arm. It was all coming back to him through a haze of hurt and numbness.</p>
<p>He shook his head. "No," he said. "That's not the gate to Temair. The <em>Farward Gate. </em>She was thrown through the <em>wrong</em> one. They were all open at the same time. I saw different places out there."</p>
<p>They locked eyes. "Kerry. I don't know <em>where</em> she's gone."</p>
<p>"Oh Jack," Kerry whispered.</p>
<p>Jack picked up the amberhorn bow and hefted his backpack. His jacket was in rags. One shoe was torn from sole to heel. He was hurting from head to toe. The standing stones towered above them.</p>
<p>Beyond them, Cromwath Blackwood's trees crowded close, now back to its thick, twisting glades. Beyond them, some distance away was the tall wall that was built to keep people out. Now he and Kerry knew the astonishing secret of the wall and the stones. The <em>gates.</em></p>
<p>Beyond the wall was a world back to normal, he knew for sure. No creeping darkness, no whispering shade. No madness in the night.</p>
<p>Beyond the wall the Major's telescope would still be focused on the woods. The major would be up in the turret with his charts<em>.</em></p>
<p>Jack had so much to tell him, so much to ask him. All the answers he needed to know about who he was and where he came from, all the things he needed to know, lay beyond the wall.</p>
<p>He paused, heart aching with the need for that knowledge. He walked across the ring, to the space between the stones through which they had run, panicked, on that first night.</p>
<p>Jack leaned against the stone, utterly worn. </p>
<p>He <em>had</em> to get home. Had to speak with the Major and find out all he knew.</p>
<p>He took one step beyond the ring, aching with the need to find the truth about his father.</p>
<p>But Corriwen Redthorn had saved his life. She had helped both of them survive all the odds in a strange world and she had helped them get home again after all they had been through.</p>
<p>The memory of their travels, their battles; her bravery. They all came back in a rush, and with them came the knowledge that he would have to act like the old heroes he had always admired.</p>
<p>They made sacrifices. Their word was more than their bond. It was their <em>life.</em></p>
<p>And Jack Flint owed a debt of life to Corriwen Redthorn. A debt he would repay come what may, no matter the cost; no matter the sacrifice.</p>
<p>He turned back and faced across the capstone to the gateway through which Corriwen had disappeared.</p>
<p>Kerry's eyes followed him, sensing the battle going on inside Jack's mind.</p>
<p>"What do you want to do?"</p>
<p>Jack slammed both fists against the great stone, venting his frustration and despair.</p>
<p>Unsteadily, but very deliberately he limped across the ring of stones to the far side. He hurt all over and he felt he could sleep for a week.</p>
<p>"She's lost somewhere. Lost and alone. I don't know where, but I've got the key to open the gate."</p>
<p>He turned to face Kerry, looked him straight in the eye. He held up the black heart stone on its silver chain.</p>
<p>"I'm going to find her," he said.</p>
<p>Kerry nodded. Understanding was clear on his face. He clapped Jack on the back. They both winced.</p>
<p>"Not on your own, you're not."</p>
<p>"I can't ask you&#8230;" Jack began.</p>
<p>Kerry held up a hand. "You're not asking. And you don't have to. We're not going to let a girl come between us, are we?"</p>
<p>"Cross my heart," Jack said.</p>
<p>"And hope to die."</p>
<p>And together they walked forward into the unknown.</p>
<p> </p>
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<h1>2</h1><p>They passed between the standing stones, turning their backs on the world they knew and everything that was familiar.</p>
<p>The black obsidian stone heart suddenly began to vibrate against Jack's chest, so fast it sang a clear high note that sounded like glass on the verge of shattering. He gripped Kerry by the arm as the light of the moon vanished behind them and they waded into a darkness so complete it seemed solid.</p>
<p>Kerry said something, but his voice was drawn out and stretched until it sounded far away. Jack's eyes opened and brilliant colours spangled and sparkled all around him in wavering shapes. His skin puckered, every hair standing on end and stings of a thousand nettles prickled all over him. He again felt that nauseous sensation of feeling turned inside out. Time lost all meaning.</p>
<p>He tried to call Kerry's name but the words were snatched away in deep-pulsing echoes. His ears popped and huge pressure hissed behind his eyes.</p>
<p>And then they were stumbling in blinding daylight, pitched forward on short cropped grass. Kerry tripped and his arm pulled from Jack's grip. He went down with a faint cry and Jack sank to his knees, holding his eyes tight shut against the glare of the low sun.</p>
<p>Kerry groaned.</p>
<p>"I'm never going to get used to that." He shook his head. "My ears are still ringing."</p>
<p>Jack breathed air, cold air. A thin frost rimed the ground and a bitter wind blew.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the distance a lone curlew piped.</p>
<p>"Winter," Jack finally said. "Or autumn. Wherever we are."</p>
<p>"Brilliant," Kerry muttered. "Couldn't she have picked somewhere warm? Like the Bahamas."</p>
<p>"She didn't have a choice," Jack replied.</p>
<p>"Only kidding, man. Let's find her and get out of here."</p>
<p>Jack got to his feet, still hurting all over, and helped Kerry up. Both of them looked around, expecting Corriwen to be sitting on the grass, but there was no sign of her, no footprints, no trodden leaves. No marks in the rime of frost.</p>
<p>Behind them two great pillars of stone towered. The ring of stones had vanished. They were eroded with age, but they could still make out the worn carvings on each of their four faces.</p>
<p>"Look," Kerry said. "It's the Guinness Harp. Maybe we're in our own time."</p>
<p>A harp was etched into the south face. On the others, what looked like a great sword, a witch's cauldron and a club of some sort, its head shaped like a skull.</p>
<p>"I don't think so," Jack said. "This is really old."</p>
<p>Down the slope, a steam wound its way through rushes and over shingle shallows. They started down the hill, joints aching, bruises protesting, leaning against each other for support.</p>
<p>They reached a mossy bank. Jack dropped his pack and the amberhorn bow. Kerry dug his sword into the turf and together they waded in, side by side until the water came up to their thighs, then, without a word, they let themselves slump into the water and let its icy cold ease their hurt.</p>
<p>The flow cleansed the cuts and scratches and sucked the heat from their bruises until they began to get numb from the cold. They clambered up the bank and lay gasping, under a leaden sky that threatened rain or snow.</p>
<p>Kerry got up on one elbow.</p>
<p>"You look like you've been hit by a bus."</p>
<p>"Thanks. You don't look so good yourself."</p>
<p>"I've felt a whole lot better," Kerry admitted. "And I've lost half a shoe." He held it up. The sole flapped like a fish-mouth.</p>
<p>Jack raised a dripping foot. "Mine are torn to ribbons."</p>
<p>"I could use some fresh undies. Maybe there's an Oxfam shop. Or George at Asda."</p>
<p>"Somehow I doubt it." Jack levered himself to his feet and helped Kerry up. Their clothes were torn and shredded. They looked as if they'd been in the wars. They truly had been in the wars.</p>
<p>"Come on," Jack said. "She's here somewhere."</p>
<p>"You sure you got the right gate?"</p>
<p>"Pretty sure." Jack <em>hoped.</em> "You saw where she hit the ground."</p>
<p>"Was she hurt?"</p>
<p>"I don't know. Maybe. It hit her pretty hard. Swiped her off her feet."</p>
<p>"I know what that feels like," Kerry said. The water had washed most of the blood from his rabbit-skin tunic. Jack hoped the cold had closed the wound. He would have to look at it, check the damage.</p>
<p>They made it back up the hill and stood next to the pair of stones set deep in the ground, scanned the land around them. The slope gentled down on all sides, short grass and clover for a hundred yards. A hedge of some sort beyond the stream; a thick pine coppice further on. Some hills in the distance. </p>
<p>Jack rummaged in the backpack and drew out the Major's binoculars, heavy and black, fingered the focus ring and the coppice, at first blurred, snapped into close-up clarity. A flock of snow buntings broke cover and whirred out of sight. Jack scanned the trees and saw nothing, then panned around, searching beyond the hedgerow and the stream. There was still nothing to be seen. He had hoped to catch a flash of Corriwen's red hair.</p>
<p>Kerry moved out, limping just a little, keeping his eyes fixed to the ground, and if there was any trace, anything to see, he'd have found it. He might have had trouble with books at school, but he could read the ground the way Jack could read stories. The Major had mentioned before that when Kerry left school he'd hire him as the estate gamekeeper, which would give him the added bonus of not losing quite so many pheasants from the fields and salmon from the river.</p>
<p>After a while he came back, shaking his head.</p>
<p>"Not a thing," he said. "Nobody's been here in a while."</p>
<p>"That doesn't mean she wasn't here. Or that she won't be."</p>
<p>"I don't get you."</p>
<p>"I mean, I know she went through the gate. But I don't know <em>when</em>. There was a carved shape on the capstone. The heart fit exactly. The Bard was right. When I turned it, the days went back. Back to the night we saw Billy Robbins."</p>
<p>He paused, concentrating. "I'm trying to remember, but I think time was still changing when she went through. I don't know if it was going forward or back."</p>
<p>"So you're saying we did all that stuff in Temair and then we came back to <em>before</em> we did it?"</p>
<p>Jack nodded.</p>
<p>"That's really cool. Hey, we could use that. We could go fishing for weeks on end and then come back the same day in time for tea. Old Iron Britches would never know."</p>
<p>Jack laughed. The Major's housekeeper had a heart of gold well hidden behind a formidable exterior. Just as well she didn't know Kerry's nickname for her.</p>
<p>The smile faded as quickly as it had appeared.</p>
<p>"First we have to solve this. Did she come through before? Or is she coming later?"</p>
<p>He was holding the heartstone in one hand. It was warm from the contact with his skin, but now it was quiet. No pulsing beat warned him of any danger. Finbar the Bard had told him it was a key, and Jack knew now how true that was. He sensed it was much more than just a key. It had burned the Banshee touch from his body and it had saved him from the hellish heat when the ground in Temair had split into bubbling fissures. What else this stone could do, he didn't know. But it had been his father's, and it was the only link an orphan had to a parent he never knew. He held it warm in his hand and tried to think of what to do next.</p>
<p>"This links all the worlds," he finally said. "And it opens the gates. That's why the Major gave it to me. My father must have been the keeper. I don't know why."</p>
<p>"So how did the Major have it?"</p>
<p>"That I don't know. He didn't have time to tell me, remember?" </p>
<p>No time at all, when he was battling the foul darkness that oozed through the big house.</p>
<p>"I've tried to remember," Jack continued. "but I was only a baby. Somebody brought me through the gate, but I don't know from where."</p>
<p>He raised the stone, catching the sunlight and sending a prism of purplish light across Kerry's cheek.</p>
<p>"So where are we now? Kerry asked. </p>
<p>"Only one way to find out."</p>
<p>Jack took the satchel and drew out the Book of Ways that had guided them through the perils of old Temair.</p>
<p>He opened it quickly and they watched the words appear on the page. This script was different, more rounded and ornate than the writing that had scrolled on the old vellum pages in that other world. On either side of the lines, in fainter ink, was an etching of the massive stones that stood alone on the small hill.</p>
<p>They read the words together.</p>
<p class="centered"><em>The Farward Gate of Fair Eirinn</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>For friend now lost a quest begin</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>Be mindful of a hero's Plight</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>A captive held must fast take Flight</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>The green sward turns to winter Waste</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>And famine spreads in evil Haste.</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>Traveller be southway bound</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>Ere the Homeward gate is found.</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>Yet journeyman be well aware</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>This Eirinn now is serpent lair.</em></p>
<p>"Clear as mud, as usual" Kerry remarked.</p>
<p>"Some of it yes. But it tells us where we are and where we have to go."</p>
<p>"So where are we," Kerry repeated.</p>
<p>"Eirinn. It's another name for the Celtic world."</p>
<p>"So it's Temair again?"</p>
<p>"That I don't know. I don't think so. The words are different. But we have to go south. And this isn't like where we arrived before."</p>
<p>"Too right. That was totally creepy. Remember that hand that grabbed me?"</p>
<p>"That wasn't the worst of it. <em>She</em> was. The Morrigan. Whatever's going on here can't be as bad as that."</p>
<p>Nothing could be as bad as that demon woman, Jack thought.</p>
<p>He examined the script again. It had taken them a while, back in Temair, to realise the Book of Ways gave warnings as well as directions.</p>
<p>"It says we go south. And it says we have to start a quest for a lost friend."</p>
<p>"Does that mean she's here already?"</p>
<p>"I think so. Probably. The Homeward Gate is south of here." Jack closed his eyes, got his bearings, and pointed beyond the coppice. "It's that way."</p>
<p>"Okay," Kerry said, rising slowly to his feet. "We'd better get moving."</p>
<p>Jack grabbed his wrist and tugged him back down to the grass.</p>
<p>"No," he said. "It's going to be dark soon. We don't know this place. We're tired and sore. I say we stay here until morning."</p>
<p>He could tell Kerry was itching to be up and off, despite the exhaustion of the past days, despite the hurt where the Morrigan had slammed him away in Cromwath Forest. Jack squeezed on his wrist.</p>
<p>"If we don't get some rest, we won't be any use to anybody," he said.</p>
<p>Kerry finally nodded and leaned back against the big stone.</p>
<p>"Maybe you're right. I'm done in." He closed his eyes, just for a moment, but a moment was all it took for sleep to take him and soon after that, night crept its way over the hill, casting long shadows that thickened to dusk and then to a starless night. Just before the last of the light faded, a huge wedge of geese, flying high, arrowed westwards towards the set sun.</p>
<p>Sometime in the night, their honking awoke Jack from a troubled slumber in which the Morrigan screamed after him in black dreams. He couldn't see the flock, but now they were flying east. He couldn't figure that out. Maybe the geese were just as confused as he was.</p>
<p>It was colder now, much colder, and he huddled inside the old leather jacket in the shelter of the great stone, leaning against Kerry to share their warmth, two boys in the dark of a strange world. Above, the clear sky black and he scanned it from north to south, searching for the corona that had shone down from the sky in Temair, but there were no stars and no moon. </p>
<p>Eirinn, the book had said. <em>Eirinn.</em> A name from the books in the Major's library, the tales of mythic heroes that he'd read cover to cover, losing himself in sagas of quests and glory. There's a kernel of truth in every legend, the major had told him. He'd said the universe is stranger than we <em>can </em>imagine.</p>
<p>How right he had been on both counts. But what else did Major MacBeth know. Finbar the Bard said he was the last in a long line of <em>guardians.</em> Guardians of the Ways.</p>
<p>Now Jack Flint and Kerry Malone were travellers of the Ways. <em>Journeymen,</em> like the book said. That first time, they had stumbled through the gate to escape the black pursuit.</p>
<p>This time they had leapt into the unknown to find Corriwen Redthorn.</p>
<p>Who knew what they would find here?</p>
<p>Jack pulled the jacket closer as the wind moaned sad and deep between the stones. He dozed fitfully wondering if they would ever find Corriwen Redthorn and the next thing he knew Kerry had clamped a hand over his mouth and pressed him against the stone.</p>
<p>Jack tried to speak, but couldn't make a sound.</p>
<p>"Shhhh!"</p>
<p>Kerry's eyes were shadows, his face turned to look beyond the stones and down the hill. Jack nodded.</p>
<p>"You were snoring," Kerry whispered. "I heard something." He took his hand away.</p>
<p>"Out there."</p>
<p>Jack twisted and peered out into the cold dark.</p>
<p>Something moved. He wasn't sure whether it was a shadow or a cloud passing. He turned his eyes to the left, trying to catch motion in peripheral vision which was much sharper at night.</p>
<p>A low rumble came from beyond the hedge, like thunder far off. The shadow moved again and this time Jack knew he had seen something. Something really big. Kerry tensed beside him.</p>
<p>"What is it?"</p>
<p>The ground vibrated under them, dull shivers that rattled their teeth.</p>
<p>"Can't see, but it's <em>huge.</em>"</p>
<p>The rumbling sound came again and the shape came closer. Heavy footsteps thudded on the hard earth and they heard the hoarse rasp of slow breath. They huddled tighter against the stone, each holding breath so as to make no sound. Kerry's hand was on his sword-hilt. Jack reached for the amberhorn bow.</p>
<p>The heavy breathing misted the night air in a cloud and they stayed still as mice, expecting a mouthful of teeth or a hairy claw to come looming out of the night.</p>
<p>The thing rumbled again, low as a lion in the night, but then it turned away, great feet making the ground shudder. In the distance, branches snapped like crackshots and the thing was gone.</p>
<p>"I never saw it," Kerry finally whispered.</p>
<p>"I don't <em>want</em> to see it," Jack earnestly replied. "Maybe this place isn't as quiet as it looks."</p>
<p>It certainly wasn't as nice in the morning when they awoke, still huddled together, hungry and stiff and frozen.</p>
<p>When Jack opened his eyes, the ground was white with snow, and a fell wind blew sharp spindrift crystals of ice against his cheek.</p>
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<h1>3</h1><p>They were both so numb they could hardly move. Jack roused Kerry who had curled tight against him like a sleeping husky in the shelter of the stone. His shoulders were rimed with ice and his skin was blue.</p>
<p>The snow glistened, icy in the morning sunlight.</p>
<p>"Come on," Jack said. He quickly scanned the land all around for any sign of the monstrous creature that had lumbered too close in the night. "We better move before we freeze to death."</p>
<p>"I think I already did."</p>
<p>"I saw geese last night. Hundreds of them, flying one way, then another. It's weird."</p>
<p>Their joints creaked as they got up, teeth chattering. Beyond the standing stones they cast around for footprints of whatever had rumbled close, but there was no sign underneath the thin spindrift blanket.</p>
<p>The stream was iced over, and a clump of marsh marigolds that had tumbled golden heads towards the water were wilted and grey with the frost.</p>
<p>"We have to get warm," Jack said. "And into some cover, just in case."</p>
<p>Kerry moved slowly, holding his hand against his ribs.</p>
<p>"And I want a look at that. Maybe you broke a rib."</p>
<p>"Feels more like half a dozen," Kerry said. "Lucky she hardly touched me or I'd be dead meat."</p>
<p>The started moving upstream until they came to the thorn hedge, spiked with icicles. Along its length, something had smashed straight through it. The frozen branches had snapped like twigs and were crushed into the ground.</p>
<p>"Just as well it never saw us," Kerry said. "It would have flattened us for sure."</p>
<p>The coppice tinkled like fairy bells, frosted pine needles sparkling in the dawn light, tiny crystals twinkling as they fell, disturbed by their passing between the trees. The couldn't see a break through the cloud, but a warmer wind blew from the south, shaking the ice from the branches like sharp hail that quickly turned to a cold misty rain as it melted. In half an hour, the ground was wet under their feet as they skirted the edge of the trees and the snow out beyond the cover was gone, converted now to a low, creeping mist.</p>
<p>"Weirdest weather I ever saw," Jack said, and just then he recalled the line from the rhyme in their Book of Ways.</p>
<p class="centered"><em>The green sward turns to winter Waste</em></p>
<p class="centered"><em>And famine spreads in evil Haste.</em></p>
<p>Before he could ponder that any further, Kerry broke in.</p>
<p>"We have to find something to eat," he said. "My stomach thinks my throat's been cut. I could eat a scabby horse."</p>
<p>"Me too. I'd give anything for bacon and eggs."</p>
<p>"Sausage and mash. Steak pie."</p>
<p>"Burgers and beans."</p>
<p>Kerry grinned weakly. "Enough. My belly's rumbling loud enough to hear a mile away."</p>
<p>"We'll find something," Jack said. "I'm sure we will."</p>
<p>But Jack wondered what there could be that was edible. He finally stopped beside the upturned root of a fallen beech tree, big enough to give them some shelter. He began to make a fire while Kerry got his fishing line and scouted around for good places to lay snares. When he came back, Jack had a billycan boiling over a small, hot fire and a tin mug steaming with thick tea.</p>
<p>"No milk, no sugar, but it tastes fine."</p>
<p>Kerry picked up the mug and drank with relish. "Best I ever tasted," he said. "I found some rabbit runs. There's some mushrooms, but I don't know if they're safe. And I nearly hit a pigeon."</p>
<p>He took another manful swig of the dark tea and let out an appreciative gasp. "Surely hits the spot, does this. But I'd shoot my granny for a couple of dunkin' biscuits."</p>
<p>In the shelter of the big root, the heat of the fire warmed them through and their damp, ripped clothes began to dry off. Jack got Kerry to take off the rabbit skin tunic he'd made himself for the Halloween party that now seemed a lifetime away. A thin, ragged cut ran from Kerry's armpit right across his ribs and all around it a purple bruise blared against his pale skin. The wound seeped a little blood.</p>
<p>"I don't like the look of that," Jack told him.</p>
<p>"I don't like the feel of it," Kerry said, as brightly as he could. "But at least we're still walking and talking."</p>
<p>Jack ripped the sleeve of his own shirt and soaked it in the hot water, dabbed it against the cut to clean it and winced as Kerry took a sharp intake of breath between clenched teeth. His eyes filmed with tears but he bravely blinked them back.</p>
<p>"I think it needs stitches," Jack said.</p>
<p>"Phone for an ambulance," Kerry shot back. He tried a grin which was more of a grimace than anything else. "I don't trust you with needles."</p>
<p>He gritted his teeth as Jack made a pad and clamped it against the wound, then tightened his tunic to keep it in place. It was the best they could do.</p>
<p>"We have to head south," Jack said. "That's what the book says."</p>
<p>"You think she's here already?"</p>
<p>"I think so. That line in the book – <em>For friend now lost, a quest begin</em>. – that makes me think she's here. How long I don't know. But we'll find her, I promise."</p>
<p>Kerry was about to reply when a thin cry pierced the air from somewhere out in the undergrowth. It startled both of them, but Kerry recovered quickly and got to his feet.</p>
<p>"That sounds like dinner," he said, leading the way from the campfire and through a tangle of thick holly until they came to a narrow track where animals had passed. He had laid snares here in a line, little loops of fishing line close to the ground. The first three, carefully planted in the centre of a rabbit-run, were still intact, but when they came to the final one, close to the edge of the coppice, it was clear something had been caught.</p>
<p>What was clearer still was that the snare had been cut by a sharp blade, and whatever Kerry's poaching skills had earned them for dinner, was gone.</p>
<p>"I don't believe it," he hissed. "Somebody's stolen my catch." His hand went to the hilt of his sword and he drew it out silently, turning slowly to scan the trees around them. Jack did the same, amberhorn bow at the ready. The only sound they heard was the growl of their empty stomachs.</p>
<p>"You see anything?" Jack spoke under his breath.</p>
<p>Kerry shook his head. He got down on one knee, examined the cut snare, then searched around. A few leaves had been scattered by something. A few yards away there was a small depression in the now-warming soil. Kerry said nothing, but pointed ahead, in hunting mode.</p>
<p>Slow and stealthy, they followed the near-invisible trail, pausing every now and again to listen, but so far the forest was silent, except for the distant tap-tap-tap of a lazy woodpecker. Ferns grew tall here in patches of sunlight. Somewhere ahead a small stream burbled softly. As them moved on the wood-pecking got louder. Jack wondered if woodpeckers were edible. The way his belly complained he felt he would even try hedgehog.</p>
<p>Kerry paused, one hand raised up. He hunkered down and peered through the fern fronds.</p>
<p>Jack pushed beside him and they peered into a small clearing, and as soon as they did, they smelt wood smoke and then the mouth-watering smell of cooking meat.</p>
<p>A good fire was going in a circle of stones and an old black pot was bubbling away on the coals. The woodpecker rat-a-tat-tat was louder still, but there was no sign of the bird.</p>
<p>Then Kerry pointed into the centre of the clearing and a small figure sprang into focus. It was wearing a brown, hooded garment and was hunched over, close to the fire, working at something they couldn't see.</p>
<p>"Freakin' thief," Kerry grated. "He's cooking our rabbit."</p>
<p>Jack's stomach rumbled like thunder. It sounded very loud indeed.</p>
<p>"Let's get it back," he whispered.</p>
<p>Kerry nodded, and wriggled forward, silent as a cat, eyes fixed on the hooded figure. He got to within four paces of the hunched shape then lunged forward, sword out, and grabbed it by the neck.</p>
<p>The small thing shrieked like a piglet as Kerry's hand clamped round its throat and it wriggled like an eel. Jack ran forward and snatched an arm and the hood fell back as the thing twisted towards them.</p>
<p>Kerry let out a yell of fright as a hairy face loomed at him, mouth lined with long, black teeth as sharp as needles. He got such a start he lost his grip and the thing squirmed away from him. But Jack still had it by the arm and with his free hand he grabbed a thin leg. The creature howled and wriggled but Jack held it tight and then, amazingly, all the black teeth tumbled out of its mouth onto the grass.</p>
<p>"Take your hands off me, you big oaf."</p>
<p>Jack froze, as startled as Kerry, still unable to comprehend the explosion of teeth.</p>
<p>A small whiskery face grimaced up at him, mouth agape in a silvery beard that swept out in two big curls. It wore an odd little cap of red leather.</p>
<p>"If it's gold you're after, that girl's got it," yelled the little man. "Her over there."</p>
<p>Kerry turned to look and the little fellow tried to pull out of Jack's grip, but Jack hadn't been fooled. He held tight until eventually the tiny man stopped struggling.</p>
<p>"Who are you?" he demanded to know. "Sneaking up on a fellow at work."</p>
<p>"You stole our food," Jack shot back.</p>
<p>"Oh, yours was it?" The elaborate whiskers shivered like antennae as the little fellow spoke. "And here was me thinking all game's fair game."</p>
<p>"It was ours. I trapped it myself."</p>
<p>"Well you should keep an eye on your snares. You never know who's about."</p>
<p>"We know that now," Jack retorted. "Just who are you?"</p>
<p>"Sure, I'm the leprechaun. Jack of all trades, and master of most of them. So it's gold you're after, is it?"</p>
<p>"We just want our dinner," Kerry said. "And anyway, you're no leprechaun. We've seen them. They live in trees."</p>
<p>"In trees, eh? That must be the Sappelings you're thinking of. Distant relations, so I believe. Third cousins thrice removed, something like that. A different branch of the family."</p>
<p>He chuckled, nudged Kerry in the ribs. "Different <em>branch. </em>I must remember that one."</p>
<p>Kerry rolled his eyes. "Sure. We twigged the first time."</p>
<p>"Twigged. <em>Twigged? </em>That's even better. You're a sharp one for a thieving poacher."</p>
<p>"Who are you?" Jack demanded again.</p>
<p>"Sure, I'm a Cluricaun. Different family of the leprechauns, so to speak. Who wants to live in an old tree when you've got all the open road ahead of you?"</p>
<p>He patted himself down. "And you've caught me unawares, square and fair, so I suppose it'll have to be the gold I give you."</p>
<p>"We don't want gold," Jack said. "We just want our dinner."</p>
<p>The little fellow snatched his arm away. He lifted his red cap and showed a bald dome of head, tufted at the ears with white hair. He had sparkling blue eyes.</p>
<p>"Well then, if you had just told me that in the first place, we could have saved all this fuss and bother. Here. I've a fine rabbit stewing. Too much for a wee man like myself, so you're welcome to share."</p>
<p>"Thanks a million for sharing <em>our</em> food," Kerry snorted.</p>
<p>"Don't you mention it young feller. And no need to thank me. Sure, I always enjoy a spot of company over a rabbit stew."</p>
<p>He took a bow and doffed the cap. "Sit ye down and we'll share and share alike and you can tell me what you're doing in this neck of these woods. And maybe we'll share a traveller's tale or two."</p>
<p>"What happened to your teeth?" Kerry asked.</p>
<p>The leprechaun smiled, pulled his lip down and showed a fine lower set. "Still got every one, so I have."</p>
<p>"They were black and spiky," Kerry said. "Gave me a heck of a fright."</p>
<p>The leprechaun burst into laughter, a jolly musical chuckle that rang through the trees.</p>
<p>"Teeth? That weren't no teeth. Sure, that was my hob-nails, for making shoes. Shoes. That's what we're best at, us Cluricauns. As my old daddy always said, <em>cobblers to kings and princes.</em></p>
<p>He winked. "And cobblers to them all, say I."</p>
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<h1>4</h1><p>The rabbit stew was simply miraculous. It was thick and spicy, mixed with wild mushrooms and other things that neither of them could identify even if they cared to. They were so hungry they spooned every delicious mouthful from their billy-cans as fast as they could then ladled more from the bubbling pot.</p>
<p>"You can call me Rune," the little man said. "Dilligan Rune, lately of old Skiboreen. You know the place?"</p>
<p>"I've heard the name somewhere," Jack said, reluctantly pausing in his feeding.</p>
<p>"Sure you have. Beautiful place it is. And they say: <em>The grass it grows green down in old Skiboreen; the porter is flowing and free. The song and the laughter rise up to the rafters, and herrings leap out on the quay.</em>"</p>
<p>He leant back, rummaged in a leather pouch and produced a long clay pipe. Jack did a double take as it emerged, surely too long to have been encompassed by the small bag, but Rune didn't seem to notice. He stacked the bowl, puffed a couple of decent smoke rings and leant back while the boys ate like starved wolves.</p>
<p>"But a long time since I saw the fair place."</p>
<p>Jack introduced themselves, surprised only by the fact that they were not surprised at all to meet a leprechaun who said he was a Cluricaun, in traditional leprechaun garb, cooking stolen rabbit in a coppice in another strange old world.</p>
<p>Rune looked them up and down.</p>
<p>"I can tell from the looks of you that you don't hail from these parts," he said. </p>
<p>"We're not," Kerry said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Jack shot him a look, warning him to give nothing away, at least until the knew more about this place.</p>
<p>"Well, if I was a guessing man, I'd guess the pair of you have been in the wars. And by the dress of you, I'd guess that you're from someplace I've never been, and I've been many a place."</p>
<p>He sat back, blue eyes twinkling. "So, if I'm not mistaken, I'd say you travellers just came through yonder Fairy Gate on the hill."</p>
<p>Jack and Kerry's jaws dropped simultaneously, rabbit stew half-way between billy-can and mouth. They looked at each other, taken completely by surprise.</p>
<p>"But what I can't guess is whether you just stumbled through by mistake, or was it a deliberate step?"</p>
<p>He puffed some more, send a couple more rings rolling up towards the leaves above.</p>
<p>"But then, you know about the Sappelings. And you," he nodded to Kerry, "wield a big man's sword. So I'm guessing you're here on a mission, am I right?"</p>
<p>Before Jack could stop him, Kerry blurted it out.</p>
<p>"We're looking for a girl."</p>
<p>Rune laughed, high and infectious.</p>
<p>"Sure, aren't we all? You should try Skiboreen. Fairest girls in all of Eirinn, I swear."</p>
<p>"How do you know about the gate?" Jack demanded. They had trusted people in Temair and had been sadly disappointed, not to mention almost killed.</p>
<p>"The gate?" Rune repeated. He chuckled again. "Sure, I'm a Cluricaun, and I travel all the roads. Tinker, tailor, cobbler, nailer, and much else besides. A travelling fellow's got to keep an ear to the ground he walks, and that way you learn the ways."</p>
<p>He beamed at them, a tiny man with ruddy cheeks and huge whiskers curling on either side.</p>
<p>"And from what you've just said, you <em>did</em> come through the gate, so I imagine then that you're looking not just for any girl, though any girl from Skiboreen is finer than ten from CorNamara, I can tell you. I would guess you're looking for a girl in particular. One that you've maybe lost, hmm? Am I guessing right?"</p>
<p>Jack nodded before he was even aware of it.</p>
<p>"And tell me some more, Jack. This girl, she wouldn't happen to have red hair would she? And can she fight like a cornered badger?"</p>
<p>"You've seen her?" Kerry blurted. "She's been here?"</p>
<p>Rune shook his head.</p>
<p>"Sadly, no, I haven't, for she sounds like a fine looking girl to me, even though she might be a shade too tall for the likes of myself."</p>
<p>"So how do you know about her?" Jack wanted to know.</p>
<p>"Oh, half of Eirinn knows about her, the fighting girl with fiery hair."</p>
<p>"How long has she been here?"</p>
<p>"I never said she <em>was</em> here, did I now?" The Cluricaun gave a mischievous smile. "Though I did hear a whisper about a girl on foot in these parts a day or so past. No, what I'm telling you is that Dermott the Wolf, he's got hunters out scouring for her all over. Has been for weeks now, so I heard tell. Looking for a fighting woman with red hair."</p>
<p>"That's our Corriwen," Jack said. "But who's this Dermott, and what does he want with her?"</p>
<p>Rune took another long puff and crossed his little legs. He closed his eyes and for a moment Jack and Kerry thought he'd fallen asleep, but after a while, he began to speak.</p>
<p>"You might have noticed that things are not at all well in Eirinn, these days. Last night there was a hard chill in the air, and this close to the midsummer. And crops are failing all over, since spring never turned its face this past while. Other places got blighted by ice before the corn was knee-high to a Cluricaun."</p>
<p>"It snowed last night," Jack said. "We almost froze to death on the hill."</p>
<p>"Ice in summer. Now that's never a good sign."</p>
<p>"So what's gone wrong?"</p>
<p>"That's the question on everyone's lips, no matter where I wander. The answer? Nobody's sure. But there's some say Dermott's stolen the Harp of Tara Hill. The dagda's Harp."</p>
<p>"The Harp of the Seasons!"</p>
<p>"What's that?" Kerry asked.</p>
<p>Rune looked at Jack, motioned him to explain.</p>
<p>"I read it in a book. The Dagda was like a god, and he had three magic things: a big club that could wipe out lots of people at one swipe; a silver cauldron that was never empty, and a golden harp that made the seasons come in the right order. It's a legend."</p>
<p>"Legend?" Rune interrupted. "So says <em>you</em>. But everybody knows the great harp has kept harmony in Eirinn since the Dagda and the Sky Queen sailed to the stars long, long ago. And now there's only trouble and discord and famine."</p>
<p>"That's what the book said," Kerry blurted.</p>
<p>Jack shot Kerry a warning look again. Kerry realised his mistake, but it was too late to bite the words back.</p>
<p>"And other things too," Rune said, ignoring Kerry's outburst. "I hear there's been Fell Runners seen on the Mourning Mountains, and Bogrim in the mists of CorNamara and more besides."</p>
<p>"What are they?" Jack asked.</p>
<p>"Things you don't want to meet on a lonely road," Rune said. "And they say old, bad things have woken hungry in the dark places too. So, you've come here at a time of trouble, and here you are, looking as if trouble has already found you."</p>
<p>"We've had a couple of&#8230;. er&#8230; accidents."</p>
<p>"Not all roads are smooth, I'll grant you. And the road ahead might be rocky and rough."</p>
<p>"Can't be as bad as the last place," Kerry said. He lifted a foot, showing the tattered trainer with the flapping sole. Jack's own shoes were cracked and torn.</p>
<p>"Well, seeing you kindly let me cook your coney, and you were good enough to catch a Cluricaun without claiming the gold, maybe I can help you there." He stood up, grabbed his bag and motioned them to follow round the base of a tree, past a couple of big rocks that looked as if they'd been rolled there long ago, until they came to a green mound, covered in trees. An arched passageway, made from cut stone, led inside the mound.</p>
<p>"I stay here when I'm passing. It's a Drumlin."</p>
<p>Kerry asked the obvious question.</p>
<p>"Where they buried one of the old kings, an awful long time ago. In the battles with the Fir Bolg. Empty now, all mouldered to dust, whoever he was, so don't worry. You might see a thing or two in the dark, but there's nothing to worry about. Wraiths never harmed a soul that didn't deserve it."</p>
<p>Kerry and Jack exchanged a glance, but Rune sat down on a stone by the entrance and reached for a three-legged wooden object that Jack saw had been elaborately and cleverly carved from a single piece. Its legs were all at right angles to each other, and each ended in a small, perfectly carved foot.</p>
<p>"Slip a foot on there," Rune told Kerry, who shucked off the useless trainer and placed his own foot on the wooden one.</p>
<p>Jack did a double-take, at first unsure that he had seen anything at all, but then he saw it. As soon as Kerry's foot came down on the wooden last, the carved foot immediately swelled and buckled as if alive, and in a smooth, flowing motion, stretched itself out until it matched Kerry's own foot exactly.</p>
<p>Rune chuckled again. "One size fits all." He turned to Jack, flipping the cobbler's last over, and instructed him to do the same. Under his sole, Jack felt the polished wood writhe and stretch until it matched his.</p>
<p>The Cluricaun picked up Kerry's trainer and examined it.</p>
<p>"Flimsy thing," he stated, shaking his head. "And made with neither love nor skill. I see children slaving over this. Not a good shoe, at all, at all."</p>
<p>He picked at the band that crossed over the tongue, peeled it back with a small rip.</p>
<p>"But this is clever. Never saw a shoe fasten like this."</p>
<p>"It's Velcro," Kerry said.</p>
<p>"Quicker than bootlace when you're in a hurry." Rune dropped the mangled trainer, leaving Kerry with one bare foot.</p>
<p>"But first, let me look at that cut," he said, tugging Kerry down to his height. Kerry sat and let the little man pull his rabbit-skin aside. The long gash seeped just a little, but the skin was cracked around it, as if infection was setting in, and the skin was a florid red.</p>
<p>"Nasty," Rune opined. He delved into the little bag again and drew out a smooth stone jar and without pause, applied a sticky black ointment to the cut. Kerry closed his eyes and let out a slow breath as the ache instantly subsided, and then, in front of Jack's incredulous eyes, the red faded away and the long gash closed itself over from bottom to top, like a zip fastener.</p>
<p>"Closewort, we call it." He patted Kerry on the shoulder. "That'll be fine in the morning. Go on and get some sleep, and you'll be on your way to find your girl, and may the road always rise up to meet your feet."</p>
<p>He led them inside the Drumlin and lit an oil lamp made from a single sea-shell, and as soon as the boys sat down on the dry earth, tiredness overtook them and in minutes, both of them were asleep.</p>
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<h1>5</h1><p>A sharp crack of sound startled her from a deep, dream-troubled sleep.</p>
<p>She came instantly awake, but it took her a few seconds to remember where she was, as the awful images fragmented and drained away; images of Jack Flint tumbling into the searing brimstone; images of that hideous creature swooping towards them, twisted and contorted with rage.</p>
<p>Corriwen Redthorn shook her head, trying to shake them all away. Out beyond the trees, the crack split the air, like a snapping branch, followed by a high yelp, the sound of an animal in pain.</p>
<p>She rolled on the dry leaves, got to her knees, feeling in the gloom for her knives and the ash stave she'd cut from a sapling. In a hole under the spreading roots of a wide beech tree, a hole dug and abandoned by some animal, she had found a shelter of sorts, out of the rain that had drenched the forest last night.</p>
<p>Hooves thudded in the distance and she scrambled out into a sparkling morning, fearful of the sound of horses and the cries of men. She had been alone and hunted before, and she knew how to hide.</p>
<p>The high cry came again and she got to her feet, scratched and sore and already hungry. Beyond the beech, a wall of juniper hid her from view from the open field at the edge of the forest and she approached it cautiously, paring back the dense leaves to peer out.</p>
<p>The field ran down from left to right, curled right in against the trees at the north end. Clumps of gorse and broom dotted the grass where animals had grazed once upon a time, but there were no cattle or sheep here now.</p>
<p>Two men on horseback rode through the brushwood, flattening it under heavy hooves. One of them shouted, deep and hoarse. His arm raised, flashed down, and the sharp crack jarred her ears. On his flank, another man in helmet and greaves wielded a lance. He brought it down in a slow arc and its tip flashed in the sun. </p>
<p>Something darted from one gorse bush to another, avoiding the spike by a hair. All Corriwen saw was a blur of grey, and it was gone.</p>
<p>The man shouted again, spun his horse and crashed through the bush in pursuit.</p>
<p>"Hunters," she thought. They had not trailed her here. Just two men out for sport. They had probably flushed a boar from a thicket. They would eat well tonight, while she scrabbled for berries and set spike-traps for small coneys at the edge of the trees.</p>
<p>Corriwen was about to turn back to her hide when the whiplash cracked again and the thin cry came again. She peered out and for a confusing moment she saw the animal lurch under the horse's belly and scamper between two thorny bushes. The lance swung and almost impaled it as it twisted and came dashing towards her.</p>
<p>Her first thought was to wish the man had spiked the thing, because it was coming straight for her, racing for the shelter of the trees, and they would no doubt follow. She didn't want to be seen again, not since the first time when horsemen had veered from the road and hunted her like a fox before she lost them in thick trees. That had been a week ago and miles away, but it was enough to make her want to stay hidden.</p>
<p>The creature came on fast in a lurching run and she pulled behind the stubbly trunk, just in case it snicked her in the passing with its tusks.</p>
<p>The whip-man turned his horse fast and came powering after it, trying to reach it before it made the trees.</p>
<p>And that was when Corriwen saw it was no boar, no animal at all.</p>
<p>It was a boy, running fast as he could, face pale with fear. It was clear he was running for his life. Running, but limping badly as if he'd already been hurt.</p>
<p>The black whip lashed out, fast as a snake, and curled tight round the boy's ankle. The horseman hauled the reins and the horse came to a skidding halt and the sudden drag on the whip jerked the boy backwards, only a yard or so from the forest edge. His feet went up in the air and his body came down with such a thud she heard all the air whoosh out of his lungs.</p>
<p>"Got him," the man growled.</p>
<p>"My turn now," the other replied. He came in fast, leaning over the roan's neck with the lance tucked under his right arm. It glinted once again, sharp and deadly, and drove downwards, set to spear the boy where he lay.</p>
<p>Corriwen felt a shout leap unbidden from her throat, but before she could make a sound, the boy twisted, shoved out with one foot and rolled out of danger. The man cursed, swung the lance high, and stabbed it down.</p>
<p>The boy yelped again while the other man dragged him back with the whip.</p>
<p>"Lie still and take it like a man," the lancer grated. </p>
<p>He stabbed again at the twisting shape on the ground, intent on running it through.</p>
<p>"No!"</p>
<p>Corriwen's cry blurted out before she realised.</p>
<p>The nearest horse, startled by the sound, reared and pawed the air. The rider stayed fixed in the saddle, but the motion dragged the boy along the ground by the leg, smearing his face through the jagged thorns. </p>
<p>She was out of the tree-line, running fast, despite all her senses urging her to stay away, out of trouble, back in the shadows and safety.</p>
<p>But she was running now, hackles up, a knife in her left hand, stave in her right. The horseman wheeled again, turned to face her and in a moment of confusion she darted in between him and the fallen boy and with one swift swipe, sliced through the fine end of the whip. The boy scrambled on all fours, desperate to get away.</p>
<p>The lancer turned towards her.</p>
<p>"What do you think you're doing?"</p>
<p>She jinked to the side, grabbed the boy's arm and dragged him to his feet just as the lance came swinging round, whooping in the air, point bright in the sunlight. She ducked away from it, still hauling the boy through the gorse towards the trees.</p>
<p>The lance snagged in the briar and that gave her a vital second or two, a vital few paces, and they were moving fast, the boy hobbling his ungainly lurch, but still able to make headway.</p>
<p>"Run," he gasped. "They'll take you too."</p>
<p>She kept tugging at him, urging him to go even faster, while the hooves thudded behind her, louder with every second.</p>
<p>The whip sang through the air and lashed across her back, a white sear of hurt that dug deep to the bone and a cry blurted from her heaving lungs.</p>
<p>"Get them," the man roared. The trees were twenty yards away, fifteen running paces, but even this close she realised it was not close enough. Instinct made her push the boy to the left, a hard shove which sent him out of the path of the horses she knew were right on her heels, and just as instinctively she threw herself to the right, using the stave as a vaulting pole, and just in time as the lance stabbed in and raked a line across her shoulder, just enough to tear her hood, but not enough to wound. </p>
<p>Corriwen swivelled, darted between two bushes and saw the whip-arm rise fast, snap down and the lash curled through the air, aimed straight at her face. She thrust the stout stave up to save her eyes, spun away as the whip curled itself around it and the horse went bulleting past in a flurry of hooves and mud. </p>
<p>Old Seumas Mayo, the Redthorn arms master had taught her well, taught her since childhood and she had forgotten nothing of his lessons. They had saved her many times when she was on the run from Mandrake and his Scree hunters.</p>
<p>The whip snarled round the stave and the horse was past her, wheeling about on a tight rein. Corriwen jammed the pole right into the hard earth and fell backwards, putting all her weight into it, both hands clasped around the stout wood.</p>
<p>The whip-man snatched his arm back, tugging on the lash, using the horse's weight to drag her down. Corriwen grunted, straining hard. The roan's momentum carried it forward and she felt the whip tense like a harp-string. Something had to give.</p>
<p>The sudden jolt on his whip arm dragged the horseman right out of the saddle, tumbled him backwards, feet in the air. He hit the ground with a heavy thump and all of <em>his </em>breath came out in one hard punch.</p>
<p>Corriwen slashed the whip again and the leather parted with a snap, and just as quickly she spun again as the second horseman came charging in, the boy now forgotten. The lance was tight under his arm and he brought it down like a jouster, viciously heeling the horse.</p>
<p>"Now you pay, outlaw," he roared, and she could see by his expression that he meant it. </p>
<p>The horse leapt over the gorse, but the lance-tip never wavered. It was aimed right at her heart, but Corriwen stood her ground, feet planted apart as Seumas Mayo had taught her, forcing her breath to be slow and easy, eyes fixed only on the lance-point.</p>
<p>It was only an arm-length from her when she twisted on her feet and slammed the stave down just behind the spear-head, putting all her strength into the swing, turning then on one foot to jam the point right into the ground.</p>
<p>The horseman bawled again as the weapon jarred into his armpit and threw him backwards in the saddle, but Corriwen was still moving, still turning on one foot, with the stave gripped in both hands, one end thrust on the grass and when she completed the motion, her feet were in the air as she used the stave as a fulcrum. Her heels caught the man straight on the ribs as he was moving backwards. The blow merely added to his imbalance and slammed him back off the saddle.</p>
<p>Corriwen landed square on her feet again, raised her blade and in one diagonal slash she cut the lance in two pieces, leaving the point buried in the ground before she turned back to the man who was on his back in the middle of a thorn-bush.</p>
<p>He was struggling, trying to get to his feet. Beyond him, the first man was groaning on his knees, holding one arm which was twisted at an odd angle, enough to tell her the jerk on the whip, or the fall from the horse had dislocated his shoulder, perhaps even broken it.</p>
<p>"I'll kill you," the fallen lancer bawled, trying to free himself from thorns which clung like hooks. He threw the broken lance to the side, drew a short sword and started hacking at the branches.</p>
<p>"Obstructing a Wolf's Man in pursuit of a felon. You'll hang for this. Hang and bleed!"</p>
<p>He took a step forward, snagged his foot on a root, and fell headlong into the briar, cursing as the thorns took their toll. Without a word, Corriwen turned away and ran for the trees, just as the stumbling boy pushed through the juniper cover and disappeared from view.</p>
<p>In seconds she was on his heels and both of them ran deep into the trees where they grew thick and close and where a horse could never follow.</p>
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<h1>6</h1><p>"We look like a pair of garden gnomes," Kerry said. "I'm like something out of the seven dwarfs."</p>
<p>"Which one are you? Dopey?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, well you must be Grumpy," Kerry shot back. "As usual."</p>
<p>Jack chuckled, for the first time since they had stepped from their world into this one.</p>
<p>"Hi-ho, hi-<em>ho</em>!" Jack pulled the hood over his head, and got another laugh from Kerry. </p>
<p>They walked on in fine morning sunlight, food in their bellies and more rested now after the strange night in Rune's drumlin.</p>
<p>Rune had placed Jack's bare foot on the wooden last and both boys had watched again as the carved foot had buckled and rippled, stretching out magically until it mirrored Jack's own, just a little bit larger than Kerry's.</p>
<p>"Measure twice, cut once," the little man had said, holding Jack's instep tight to the last. "My, the pair of you must leave big tracks in the mud."</p>
<p>He bent to his bottomless bag and began to remove strips of what looked like leather of different textures and colours.</p>
<p>"The trick is, you use thirteen hides. Coney, wolf, all the fast ones. And shoe horn from the four-horn goat. Best climber ever there was."</p>
<p>"If you make it fit, we won't need a shoe horn," Kerry said. Rune winked up at him.</p>
<p>"Oh, they'll fit," he said. "Don't you worry about that. And the four-horn won't let you fall, unless you're really daft and careless."</p>
<p>With that he bent to the task, tip-tapping, hunched over the last, and after a while the soft and steady beat of the little hammer on leather lulled them into sleep in the warmth of the cavern.</p>
<p>Until Jack awoke suddenly in the darkness, all his senses alert.</p>
<p>The tapping sound had changed tone. Beside him, in the wan light of the fire at the cave's mouth, Kerry was curled up on a bed of dry leaves, snoring softly, both hands around the hilt of his sword. The little lamp had snuffed out.</p>
<p>At his throat, the stone heart was vibrating, fast as a tuning fork. The sound its crystal made was like a single note, so high it was almost inaudible. Jack clamped his hand over it and the vibration surged through his hand, through his bones, and then it stopped.</p>
<p>Jack heard the other sound again, a steady pulse, not a tapping sound, but a far-off beat that seemed to shiver the stones under him. He sat up, straining to see, straining to hear. There was no sign of the Cluricaun.</p>
<p>The beat grew louder. It sounded like distant footsteps, heavy and solid. He stood up in the gloom, swinging his head left and right, trying to work out the direction, and as he did, he felt his feet move him past Kerry towards the deeper darkness at the back of the cave.</p>
<p>Doom-<em>doom. </em>It <em>did</em> sound like footsteps, getting louder as they approached. He remembered what Rune had said about the drumlin.</p>
<p>"<em>Where they buried one of the old kings, an awful long time ago</em>," he'd said. "<em>You might see a thing or two in the dark, but there's nothing to worry about. Wraiths never harmed a soul that didn't deserve it</em>."</p>
<p>Jack felt no fear, only curiosity, and that was fine with him, because it meant he was dreaming. He moved forward, one hand touching the dry stone walls, breathing in the fine dust of centuries past, while the footsteps grew louder, echoing now from wall to wall.</p>
<p>In the distance something moved. He saw a shimmer of pale blue light, hardly visible at all, but as he approached it, the glimmer grew stronger, expanded. It seemed to be coming from a far distance although in the confines of the cave, he knew that could not be true, but still he walked on as the approaching steps swelled ever louder.</p>
<p>He stood in a round cavern. He sensed the walls around him, but kept his eyes firmly on the blue glimmer that grew larger, as if it was approaching him <em>through</em> the stone.</p>
<p>"What do you want?" he asked. "Who are you?"</p>
<p>A low, shuddery sigh was the only response, like an autumn wind through brown leaves.</p>
<p>The heavy footfalls came on and now Jack stood still, waiting.</p>
<p>The blue glimmer began to take shape as it came on, walking slowly as if exhausted in travel from somewhere far away. It was a man-shape. Head bent low. Jack heard the clink of armour and the cold rasp of breathing, but still, in this dream he was not afraid. He took a step forward and the light coalesced, became a figure that stood tall and broad, head still bowed.</p>
<p>He could see through it, as if it was smoke, see the cracks in the stones beyond it.</p>
<p>"Who disturbs my rest?" The dry voice was a whisper, barely heard. "Who calls me awake?"</p>
<p>The shape wavered in the air, somehow solid, yet insubstantial. The shield it carried was round and scarred from many a battle. It bore a sign that Jack Flint had seen before; five bright stars in a perfect semi-circle. They glistened like precious stones.</p>
<p>"The Corona," he whispered.</p>
<p>The free arm raised up silently and Jack saw the great sword, blue as a gas flame, wavering in the dark as if disturbed by an eddy of air, the blade pitted and chipped from hard and desperate use. The hand that held it up was just dry bone.</p>
<p>Jack took a step back. On his chest the stone heart pulsed slowly, but he still felt no fear . This was a dream, of course, and even if not, nothing so insubstantial could be any danger.</p>
<p>The spectre's helmet began to rise and Jack tensed, not knowing what to expect.</p>
<p>The skull underneath leered at him. Dark sockets empty of everything except that faint blue glow, but he sensed those empty eye-holes regard him, measure him.</p>
<p>"No peace," the spectre sighed. "No harmony."</p>
<p>Jack said nothing at all.</p>
<p>The skeleton held him with its empty gaze.</p>
<p>"There is no music now," it said in a shuddery voice, so deep it made Jack's own bones quiver.</p>
<p>"The fight was good and long and hard, and we saved the world for peace. Was it all for nought?"</p>
<p>"I don't know what you mean?"</p>
<p>"Heroes, long gone to rest. We fight no more."</p>
<p>The bony hand swung the sword down and there was a scraping sound as it slid into a scabbard as long as Jack was tall.</p>
<p>Then, very slowly, the skeleton fingers reached towards him and Jack could not move. He watched the bones open wide, long and thin and dry. They touched him on the neck, and still he could not move.</p>
<p>Then it had the heart-stone grasped in its dry fingers. Jack tried to protest, to pull away, but in the dream his feet were welded to the ground, all his muscles frozen.</p>
<p>The spectre raised it up in front of Jack's eyes. The dark stone gleamed in the blue light.</p>
<p>Suddenly he <em>saw.</em></p>
<p>Through the stone, the spectre's skeletal face was no longer bone, no longer skeleton at all.</p>
<p>Blue eyes held his in a steady gaze. Fair hair hung in braids beneath the gleaming helmet. Scars ran in deep clefts across a cheek.</p>
<p>"You come to reclaim harmony. Our fight is long over. Your battle just begun."</p>
<p>The voice was no longer dry as dead leaves. It echoed from distant walls with strength and eerie power.</p>
<p>The hand that had been long white bone raised towards him. Something gleamed in the corner of Jack's vision, a flash of gold.</p>
<p>The warrior hand held a torc, almost a complete ring of gold.</p>
<p>"Talisman for a king," the dream-spectre said. "For peace and harmony and an end to wicked ways."</p>
<p>The torc touched Jack's forehead. He felt it cold and smooth.</p>
<p>Then it was gone, and the heart swung down and settled against his chest.</p>
<p>Seen in the dark, the spectre was bone again, gaunt and laboured. It turned slowly and walked away with heavy treads. Doom-<em>doom-doom.</em></p>
<p>In his dream, Jack stood as the glimmering blue shape walked through the dry stone walls, and kept walking, still visible, though fading, until at last he was gone and Jack was left alone in the dark.</p>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>The dream had come back to him as they walked in sunlight, long after they had left the drumlin, and that was after Rune had disappeared into the foliage in the blink of an eye, silent as a cat, as if he had never been there at all.</p>
<p>But he <em>had</em> been, for where the shoe-last had stood, with the little man hunched over it tap-tapping in the night, two pairs of leather boots sat side by side on the flattened grass beside the ring of stones where the embers still softly smouldered.</p>
<p>"Now you won't get better for the journey you're on," the little fellow had said. "The best shoes a Cluricaun can make, and remember what I said about the four-horn. There's nothing so steady on its toes."</p>
<p>Lying near the boots, Kerry's tattered trainers looked sad and tired, as if they had walked too far and then some more, and there was more than a hint of truth in that, Jack knew.</p>
<p>Beside the shoes, two pairs of leggings in greenish leather, and tunics with hoods attached. And with each, a belt in braided hide that gleamed as if burnished with spit and polish. Kerry's sword was now held in a sturdy sheath.</p>
<p>The boys needed no spurring to cast off their own dirty clothes, the ones they had stitched together, quite inexpertly, for the Halloween party. Hard choices and harder trails through mountain and forest had ripped and torn them beyond recognition. They were no longer fancy dress.</p>
<p>"Look," Kerry said when he had pulled the tunic on. He looked like an extra from a Robin Hood film. "He's used the Velcro from my trainers."</p>
<p>"Waste not, want nought," Rune said brightly. "I'll figure the making of that, mark my words. I'll earn my fortune with it."</p>
<p>Jack laughed. The tunic fitted like a skin, but the boots, they seemed to mould around his feet like welcome winter stockings, as if he'd already worn them for miles and broken them in for comfort.</p>
<p>"They fit," he finally said.</p>
<p>"What did you expect?" Rune shot back. "From a Cluricaun craftsman?"</p>
<p>Kerry bounced up and down. "I never had a pair of shoes that fit first time. Never had a new pair in my life."</p>
<p>He grinned to Jack. "All my life I've been kitted out by Oxfam, and I have to come here to get in style."</p>
<p>Kerry did a spin, as if he was on a catwalk. "Look at me, Dad. Who's the raggedy arsed bogtrotter now?"</p>
<p>"Well, ye look just the part for sure," Rune said, "And you won't stick out like a boil on the backside neither."</p>
<p>"That's really kind," Jack said.</p>
<p>"Well, you wouldn't take the gold, as you've a right to ask."</p>
<p>"We never believed you anyway," Kerry chuckled.</p>
<p>"Well believe this. You've some travellin' to do, to find this red-headed slip of a girl. So you can't get distracted."</p>
<p>At that he flicked his hand up and they heard a thin metallic jangle. Something gold whirled up above their heads, caught the light. It was a coin. It made a small whirring sound as it reached the apex of its travel, then started to fall towards them.</p>
<p>Jack raised his hand to catch it, but when his fingers closed around it, there was nothing there. The coin, whatever it was, winked out of existence, leaving his hand empty.</p>
<p>"Neat trick," he said. But when he turned to Rune, the little Cluricaun had vanished without a sound. His bag, his shoe-last and his whiskery beard were gone, as if they had never been.</p>
<p>Somewhere, far distant, an impossible mile or more, Jack thought he heard the little fellow's musical laugh. But it could have been the tinkle of a stream over stones. Someone that size couldn't move that fast, he told himself.</p>
<p>Or could he?</p>
<p>"He was right," Jack said. "We got distracted."</p>
<p class='break'>* * *</p>
<p>"Hi-ho, <em>hi-ho</em>." Jack quickened his steps to match the beat. He had cut a sapling for a walking stick and swiped a thistle-head, sending it tumbling in the fresh air.</p>
<p>"You're Dopey now," Kerry giggled. "Definitely loony."</p>
<p>He stopped and fumbled in his bag.</p>
<p>"Found this last night," he said, holding up a little harmonica. "I forgot I packed it."</p>
<p>"I didn't know you played the mouthorgan."</p>
<p>"I don't, but I thought I'd give it a bash. Maybe become a busker. Or a rock star."</p>
<p>"Yeah, right," Jack retorted. Kerry ran the harmonica from side to side and managed to get a riffle of notes. It sounded quite tuneful in this lonely place and as they walked along, he continued blowing and sucking quite merrily.</p>
<p>And that's why they didn't hear the horsemen bearing down on them.</p>
<p>Jack just felt an odd vibration through the soles of his new boots. He grabbed Kerry's wrist and pulled the harmonica away. It gave a faint squeal. </p>
<p>As soon as the noise stopped Jack saw Kerry's head cock to the side, the way he always did when they stalked rabbits down in the glen at home.</p>
<p>"I hear something."</p>
<p>Jack held his breath, listening.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the distance, what direction he couldn't say, came a sound like the shudder of heavy footsteps they had felt in the cold night beside the standing stones.</p>
<p>Something big and heavy was moving, but some way off and still out of sight.</p>
<p>"Come on," Jack said. "Whatever it is, we don't want to meet it out in the open."</p>
<p>He took a step forward on the southern road when a shout cut the air from behind them. Both Jack and Kerry turned simultaneously at the sound.</p>
<p>Over the rise, where the road disappeared between two hillocks in the distance, a troop of horsemen came galloping towards them, all bunched together as though they meant business.</p>
<p>"Oh-oh." Kerry's hand instinctively went for the hilt of the sword. Jack stopped him.</p>
<p>"There's too many of them," he said. "We can't get caught until we find Corriwen." He turned quickly. Broken ground swooped away to the west, all tussock grass and rough heather, towards a narrow ravine where a stream had cut through the land. Beyond that, maybe a mile or so away, the edge of a forest cast a dark shadow.</p>
<p>Jack pulled Kerry to the side, behind a straggly thorn bush.</p>
<p>"You think they saw us yet?"</p>
<p>Kerry shrugged. "Hard to tell."</p>
<p>"Come on then!" He swung Kerry with him as they left the hardpack track and down the lee towards the ravine. Here they were hidden from the road and as soon as they hit the flat ground, they were off and running, dodging between the tussocks and brambles, keeping low. Behind them the pounding of hooves waxed louder but they made the shelter of ravine faster than Jack would have though possible and, like young foxes hunted by hounds, they skittered downstream along the banks, crossing on boulders, In minutes the forest swallowed them and the stream into its depths.</p>
<p>"That was <em>fast." </em>Kerry said. "We must have done a three minute mile."</p>
<p>"Good running boots," Jack said, and he was hardly out of breath. Way behind them the sounds of pursuit was faint in the distance. Jack risked a pause and peered between shaggy trunks out in the direction they had come. The riders had paused by the roadway. One of them pointed across the flats, almost as if he could see them both, though they were hidden by drooping branches. Three of them peeled off and urged their horses down the slope. The rest of them kicked flanks and the men, maybe twenty in all, went southwards in a tight bunch, while the three outriders spurred their horses towards the ravine, towards the forest.</p>
<p>"We'll lose them here," Jack said confidently. Kerry pulled up his hood then drew out his sword, and he didn't look like Dopey at all. He looked like a young warrior from a medieval tale.</p>
<p>"Cool duds, dude," Jack knuckled him on the shoulder.</p>
<p>"Made to measure. Sure beats hand-me-downs."</p>
<p>With that, they turned and sprinted between the hoary trunks and the forest darkened around them as they made their way into its depths, crushing the dead leaves under their feet. Very soon they were well away from the edge of the forest and the sounds of pursuit faded.</p>
<p>"Will they come in after us?"</p>
<p>"Not with the horses," Jack said. "They'd never get through here."</p>
<p>That was true enough. Little tracks and runnels criss-crossed between the trees which crowded closer together the further they walked. Underfoot the ground was carpeted in moss which covered the tree-trunks like green fur. Pale foxglove struggled up to catch what little light came down through the spreading branches overhead. With almost every step the forest grew denser and darker. And it grew quieter, as if the thick moss sucked in the sound of their footfalls and held them tight.</p>
<p>"It's a bit like Sappeling Wood," Kerry said, brushing a gauzy spiderweb from his face. He pulled his hood up.</p>
<p>"But there's no sign of the little people," Jack replied. "And the trees don't move."</p>
<p>"Good. I don't like surprises."</p>
<p>Somewhere in the distance behind them, faint sounds told them the horsemen had paused, but there was no crackling of branches that would show they were being followed. The pair of them slowed down, but kept walking in the direction Jack's internal compass told them was south.</p>
<p>It took them deeper and deeper and Jack had to use the stout stick to clear thin bramble runners that snagged their angles and spindly climbing roses that looked starved and wan, but had sharp, piercing thorns.</p>
<p>Over a rise beside a sluggish runnel clogged with rotted leaves and down the far side they found themselves descending into a dell where so little light managed to break through that it was like damp twilight. Here it smelt of decay and wet and no birds sang. They paused for a moment before moving down the slope into the shadowed basin when Kerry stopped.</p>
<p>"Did you hear something?" He spoke in a whisper.</p>
<p>Jack shook his head. Kerry stood stock still, listening. Finally he shrugged.</p>
<p>"Just my imagination," he said. </p>
<p>"I hope so. It's kind of creepy here." It was shadowed and damp, but there was a sense of hidden life here. The dripping dew from the thick moss made forest itself seem to take slow, dank breaths. The dark was becoming oppressive, somehow threatening.</p>
<p>"How far do we have to go?"</p>
<p>"I don't know." Jack looked around him. This forest could go on for miles, but he thought it best to keep going in the same direction – away from pursuit and bearing south.</p>
<p>They moved on down into the basin and the air of strangeness, of heavy oppression deepened. Things fluttered on silent wings in the branches above, only seen in peripheral vision. Beside a sluggish runnel, a big warted toad eyed them balefully, expanding its wattled gullet in slow gulps.</p>
<p>"It <em>is</em> kind of creepy here," Kerry finally agreed. He still had his hood up, but now he had drawn his sword out. They had seen nothing, but as the trees crowded closer, shadows seemed to loom at them, causing both of them to edge together until their shoulders touched. It made Jack and Kerry feel a little more comfortable, but not much. Somewhere ahead, a low wind moaned, and Jack took that as a hopeful sign that they would soon be out in the open, in sunlight.</p>
<p>The dell continued downslope. Underfoot, years of fallen leaves had left a thick carpet of dark brown. Spiderwebs stretched from trunk to bough like silvery nets, festooned with packets of silk-bound insects. In one web, a bat fluttered helplessly until a black spider, big around and as shiny as a snooker-ball pinioned across its web and snatched the creature in a flicker of motion.</p>
<p>"Spiders," Jack grimaced. "I hate them."</p>
<p>"Don't be a wimp," Kerry said. "They're only bugs."</p>
<p>"Never seen bugs that size."</p>
<p>The spider scuttled across its rigging, carrying the cocooned bat like a prize. Jack walked carefully around it, making sure he didn't disturb the web. Behind him Kerry bent and picked up a thin frond of fern and as he followed, he lightly flicked Jack's ear with it.</p>
<p>Jack visibly jumped and Kerry let out a whoop.</p>
<p>"Gotcha," Kerry chuckled. "You're like a cat on hot bricks."</p>
<p>Jack whirled and Kerry's chuckle stopped dead.</p>
<p>"Yeah, very funny. You should be on Stars in their Eyes. Laugh a minute."</p>
<p>Kerry's mouth shut like a trap. Then it opened again.</p>
<p>"Stuck for words for a change?"</p>
<p>"<em>Suh&#8230;</em>"</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>Kerry's eyes were wide. At first, in the gloom, Jack thought he was looking straight at him. But then he realised Kerry's gaze was fixed just beyond Jack's head.</p>
<p>"Okay, very good," he said. "I'm not falling for that again."</p>
<p>"Suh-<em>suh&#8230;.SUH!"</em></p>
<p>"Suh <em>what?"</em></p>
<p>"Suh&#8230;..<strong><em>SNAKE</em></strong><em>!</em>"</p>
<p>"Oh really?" Jack was losing patience. "You can think of something better than that."</p>
<p>He began to turn to walk on. "You don't get snakes in&#8230;</p>
<p>A black streak launched itself at him, fast as a lightning strike.</p>
<p>Jack was half turned, ash stave in his hand, and all he got was a glimpse of a mouth gaping open, a wide pink mouth. He got an impression of two insanely long teeth lunging for his face.</p>
<p> </p>
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