The smell of burning followed them as they ran from the nightshades. Ahead was a small stand of trees which would offer very little cover. Jack knew they couldn't keep running all night.
Yet couldn't stop either, not in the open and unarmed, he thought, as they crested the hill and down the other side.
"We should go back to the village," Kerry said.
"There's no haven there," Corriwen countered. She was hugging one elbow tight as she ran, obviously slowed by the pain.
"Save your breath," Jack ordered. "And keep running!"
He felt defenceless without the great sword and the heartstone. The sword had felt a part of him since the first time he'd held it in Eirinn, when he stood alongside Hedda the Scatha facing the charging cavalry.
And the heartstone, his father's talisman, that had a power all of its own. The key to worlds.
As they raced down the far side of the hill they could hear the creatures behind, howling like hyenas over a kill. Hyenas would be bad enough, but the unearthly shadow shapes - the nightshades,- were so unnatural, so fundamentally wrong, that it stirred the deepest terrors inside his mind.
He had been carried as a baby as the shades had hounded them through a forest. The recollection spurred a supernatural fear, one that he didn't believe he would ever want to face again.
Suddenly a truly savage howl shuddered the night and startled all three of them.
"What the freak is that?"
Jack didn't have the breath to respond. The howling soared high and then subsided into a vicious snarl. Another blared, closer in, but this time even louder, closer. Much too close.
"Surrounding us," Corriwen gasped. "They're fast."
From the corner of his eye, Jack thought he saw a pale shape running low about a hundred yards away.
He swerved and Kerry and Corriwen followed. They found themselves racing towards the edge of a thick forest.
"No way," Kerry blurted. "Not again!"
He tried to veer away. It was understandable. They had been in forests so often before in other worlds and in each one they had faced terrible dangers.
Jack risked a glance behind him and saw the dark shadows creeping over the hill like a rising tide. They had no choice but to run for the trees. Jack grabbed Kerry's arm and swung him back.
The trees enfolded them in shadows and the three ran in the dark, hands outstretched as they went, careening into saplings and through tangles of fern.
Now the howling was really close. Something heavy crashed through undergrowth.
Spider-webs caught at Corriwen's hair, parting with sinewy snaps. Ghostly moths whirred around their heads but they still pushed on, over a rise and then across a shallow stream.
Kerry crouched fast and came up with two heavy rocks. Jack scrabbled around for a stout branch and when his fingers found one, he heaved a sight of relief. It was not ideal, but it was something to fight with. He hoped.
But there was every possibility that the nightshades, just couldn't be fought. If the villagers barricaded themselves in at night and huddled, afraid, until dawn, how could three youngsters do better?
He pushed Corriwen ahead of him, aware of her ragged breathing, knowing she was hurt and tiring even more than he was, but he made sure he and Kerry were between her and whatever was coming. They barged through, tripping and sliding while thorns and splinters spiked their exposed skin.
The snarl came so loud it caused them all to jump. Kerry turned, one stone raised. Something flitted between the trees, just a flash of grey. It growled again, deep and throaty and came in fast on their flank.
"It's getting ahead of us," Jack said.
Kerry launched a stone at the fleeting shape, a good throw that missed the creature by only a few feet and smacked against a trunk.
The animal snarled again, ferocious and hungry. Then, from their right, an almost identical snarl told them there were two of them, closing in from either side.
Just ahead, a massive tree blocked their way, but Jack pushed Corriwen towards it. They stumbled over tangled roots until they came hard up against a trunk as wide as a wagon.
Corriwen instinctively reached for her knives. Her fingers hooked on empty sheaths, and she hissed in anger and dismay.
Jack took a second to check out the tree. Thick branches grew from the trunk, low enough to reach.
"Lets get our backs to the tree," he said. "They're closing in. I don't think Corrie can run any further."
His heart seemed to be stuck in his throat, but there was nothing for it. At least it might give Corriwen a chance, and he owed her that, after all they'd been through together; after she'd willingly stepped through the gateway to stand by him. At least he could fight for her, he told himself. He leaned against the trunk and laced his fingers together, forming a stirrup.
"Climb, Corrie," he urged. "Maybe these things can't."
She didn't hesitate. She got one foot in his hands and she grunted with the effort and the sudden wrench of pain in her shoulder as he boosted her up to the first branch. Beside him, Kerry launched another other stone. It crashed through the ferns and hit another tree with a gunshot crack.
"Missed again!"
"You next," Jack said urgently. "Come on man! They're closing in."
He braced his legs to take Kerry's weight when from above, Corriwen called down.
"There's a light. I can see it from here."
"What's that?"
"It's a cottage. A woodsman's hut."
The beasts were approaching more slowly now. Jack saw a flicker of red as their eyes reflected shards of moonlight that managed to pierce the foliage. They growled softly as they closed in.
Corriwen clambered down from above and Jack caught her with both hands.
"It is a cottage," she repeated, excited. "In a clearing. I think we can make it."
Jack and Kerry rounded the tree and saw the winking light not far ahead of them. Corriwen ran for it and they followed her, Kerry a couple of steps ahead of Jack, who kept a tight grip of only weapon they now had, ready to defend them all.
The clearing opened abruptly before them, wide enough to let in moonlight and Jack saw they were running across a carpet of moss and leaves towards the light in the cottage. The scent of woodsmoke drifted in the air told him somebody was home, and that spurred him on..
The gibbering sound of the nightshades had faded away, but the big beasts were now so close Jack could smell them. He whirled, branch raised, and saw them clearly now, hackles raised in spikes and eyes drawn into slits. Long fangs showed in twin snarls.
Kerry snatched at his hood and pulled him along. The animals howled in unison and Jack needed no further urging.
Corriwen was twenty yards ahead, silhouetted in the light from a small window. Grey smoke spiralled from a crooked chimney of the ramshackle cottage. The boys followed her as fast as they could, all the time fearing those sharp fangs might close on their necks.
The door was wooden, splintered in places. Corriwen hit it with all her weight, bounced, yelped in pain and fell backwards. She sprang up and hammered with the flat of her hand.
"Open up. Please open."
On the edge of the clearing, the hounds, or wolves, snapped and snarled, but came no closer, and that alone made Jack's skin twitch.
If they were afraid to approach…
The thought was immediately cut short when Corriwen pushed the door again and it swung open. Her momentum carried her forward, and them with her. All three landed in a heap inside.
"Close it quick!" Jack cried, trying to untangle himself. Kerry clambered up and swung the door shut. Jack helped Corriwen to her feet and looked around.
The cottage was tiny, cramped and cluttered. Cobwebs festooned old rafters. A fire glowed in a grate and above the embers a black pot hung from chains. It bubbled in the heat, giving off a meaty aroma of stew.
On rickety shelves around the crooked walls, translucent jars of coloured glass held an assortment of creatures, magnified in the liquid they floated in. Frogs and toads; spiders and beetles, and bits of other things that none of them could identify. A rough-hewn table was covered with mixing bowls and grinders and a heavy carving knife was jammed point-first into the surface. More knives hung from hooks.
"I don't like this," Kerry said, eying the array of knives. "It's like a witch's den."
"Better than out there," Corriwen whispered. Jack thought she sounded more hopeful than confident, but he said nothing. He took it all in, the weird creatures in the jars, the pot bubbling away, and wondered if they had escaped from one danger and into another. This place reminded him of Hanzel and Gretel in a fairytale forest.
And the black house in the forest of Temair. The one that tried to draw them in.
Then a hand reached past him, a hand with long thin fingers, stained bright scarlet, and touched Kerry on the shoulder.
Kerry let out a wail of pure fright as a hooded figure bent towards him.
"Don't eat me!" He yelped.
A pair of deeply shadowed eyes peered out from under an old black cowl.
"Eat you?" It was an old woman's voice. Grey hair hung down on either side of her face. "What a disgusting thing to say!"
She pulled him closer, inspecting him. "And besides, there's hardly a pick on you worth chewing on."
Without turning, the woman spoke again. "You might as well put that knife down, my dear. You could cut yourself."
Very slowly Corriwen lowered the knife back to the table. She'd moved so fast that Jack hadn't even seen her snatch it up..
"Now, young travellers," the woman said. "I think you've had quite a night of it, eh?"