Sky Wolves (26 page)

The mighty Cerberus burst out of his cavern and charged through the underworld, howling.

The underworld rumbled and shook. The ground around Gentleman Jim and Pico began to slide from under them and rocks cascaded down. The Furies shrieked, but the noise was lost against the greater cacophony of sound. They folded their bat wings around their ears, causing them to plummet, maddened, to the ground. A great gale of noise blasted past Gentleman Jim. His ears and jowls rippled backwards with the force of it, while his brain batted around his skull like a demented moth. His last clear thought was that he might as well pass out, since it seemed pointless to even try to do anything else.

The monstrous hound thundered towards the river of forgetting, all three heads howling at once. He pounded his mighty tail as he ran, and Checkers flew out of it, yelping, but Boris hung on like grim death. It was almost as though he’d forgotten how to let go.

‘Cerberus!’
moaned the Furies, covering both ears and eyes, while Pico, Orion and Gentleman Jim stared in horror as the hideous beast lumbered into view. His three heads gnashed their horrible teeth, each fang larger than
Gentleman Jim and a good deal more pointed. His six eyes glowed like furnaces and rolled in agony. Poisonous foam flew from his jaws and all along his scaly neck diabolical serpents hissed like countless pressurized valves releasing steam.

Yep, definitely a good time to pass out,
Gentleman Jim thought.

But the horrendous hound was careering directly towards them, maddened with pain. Orion’s bow shook crazily in his hands; it was anyone’s guess who he might hit with his arrow. Cerberus lashed his tail with supreme violence and Boris finally flew off. He hit a jagged rock and lay stunned and sickened by the foul venom in the monster’s tail. Cerberus didn’t pause, but carried on lunging towards Orion, who was the only creature he could dimly see, and who, therefore, he was determined to punish for the pain in his tail. Checkers, crushed and feeble but undaunted, hobbled after him as well as he could, determined to find Boris and rescue him. But it was Pico who ran to meet the demonic hound.

‘
DIE
!’
shrieked the three heads of Cerberus.
‘
YOU WILL ALL DIE
!’

‘WOOF!’ said Pico, taking the diabolical dog completely by surprise. His three heads thrashed around.

‘
I SAID YOU WILL DIE
!’
they howled.

‘WOOF!’ said Pico again.

Cerberus’s three heads looked down, then down again. He couldn’t even see Pico.

‘
WHO ARE YOU THAT SAYS
“
WOOF
”?’
he bellowed, so Pico said it again.

Cerberus lowered his mighty neck. His six eyes struggled
to focus. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, but lately he had suspected that he was getting a little short-sighted. Or at least, three of his eyes were short-sighted. The others seemed, if anything, to be getting long-sighted. He supposed it was only to be expected, since all his eyes were thousands of years old, but it was a bit of a nightmare really. He couldn’t see anything properly. And he really didn’t want to start wearing glasses. Besides, where would he get them from?

Gradually, as he lowered his enormous neck, he became aware of six specks standing in a group on the ground. They jiggled about a bit, some standing closer than others, but as he lowered his heads still further, they slowly resolved themselves into one tiny dog.

‘WOOF!’ it said.

Cerberus’s three heads banged into one another in disbelief. He hadn’t even known a dog could
be
that small. He opened his horrid mouths, blasting Pico with the incomprehensible stench of his rotting breath… and laughed!

Or at least, two of his heads laughed, howling and shrieking in mirth, as though they’d just been told a really funny joke. The third head gnashed its rotten teeth in rage that something as titchy as Pico dared to defy him.

‘
OUT OF MY WAY
!’
it bellowed.

‘WOOF!’ said Pico yet again.

Gentleman Jim, who had quite failed to pass out, trembled like jelly in an earthquake at what seemed to be the inevitable demise of his little friend, while behind Cerberus Checkers limped up and down, barking and snapping.

‘
RIGHT, THEN
,’
said Cerberus.
‘
I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS.
’

He raised an enormous paw, with claws like a dragon’s talons, and looked set to bring it down on Pico, crushing the little dog out of existence.

It was at this moment that Flo and Aunty Dot, in her new guise as one of the Fates, crashed through an opening into the underworld and landed right in their midst.

Even in her stupor of grief, Jenny blinked. The rainbow hadn’t been there before. And as she stared, it began to tremble, as though something or someone huge was striding over it.

Against her will her hackles rose, the hair on her back bristled and her lips drew back in a snarl. If this rainbow was the bridge she had heard of, called Bifrost, then Jenny knew there was reason to be afraid. Because it linked the different worlds and was the means by which all the monsters and demons, trolls and giants would invade Sam’s world in Ragnarok.

There was only one of whatever was coming, however. Single footsteps rattled and pounded the shining bridge, and as they reached its apex a long shadow fell across the surface. Jenny crouched, preparing to spring. She had suffered enough, and was more than willing to make someone else pay.

The shadow lengthened as the footsteps approached.

Jenny rolled her eyes upwards, ready to view her enemy before she attacked. She had never met a giant before and didn’t know quite what to expect, but she was taken by
surprise to see a small boy in a large, misshapen and ridiculously yellow jumper.

‘Jenny!’ cried Sam.

‘Berry!’ cried Aunty Dot, and Cerberus stopped bellowing, mid-thrash.

‘
AUNTY ATROPOS!
’
cried the enormous hound, and the next few moments were literally pandemonium, as the great beast lumbered towards Aunty Dot, lowering its hideous heads, and she flung her arms around each of his vast, scaly necks in turn.

Everyone stared in amazement. There seemed to be so much to take in.

Aunty Who?’ said Pico, glancing over to where the tall, ragged woman with milk-blind eyes and hair like snakes was embracing the monstrous three-headed Hound of Hades.

Everyone looked questioningly at Flo.

‘Don’t ask,’ Flo said.

Gentleman Jim was the first to move. He stumbled over to Pico, who seemed to be rooted to the spot, and scooped him up out of harm’s way.

‘I don’t know whether you’re a hero or a complete lunatic!’ he growled as he set him down again.

Pico shook himself.

‘Flo?’ said Checkers, limping up excitedly. ‘Pico? Gentleman Jim – where’s Boris?’

‘Here I am,’ said Boris, lumbering slowly towards the group. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Blowed if I know, mate,’ said Checkers, and he butted Boris playfully, to say thank you for saving his life, and when Boris got up again, he sat on him and chewed his ears.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Flo, as everyone did.

‘Who’s this, then?’ Checkers added, looking at Orion, and ‘Blimey, who are they?’ nodding his head towards the Furies, who were flapping about again in consternation.

‘Sister,’
moaned the Furies together.
‘Sister, this is not your place.’

‘Sister?’
said Gentleman Jim to Flo, who just shook her head hopelessly.

‘She
says
she’s Aunty Dot,’ she said, as Gentleman Jim gaped at her. ‘At least, she was before – then she changed.’

‘Sister,’
the Furies droned again, with one voice, but the strange grey being claiming to be Aunty Dot ignored them.

She and Cerberus were too busy nuzzling one another to take notice of anyone or anything else. Aunty Dot scratched the spines on his scaly neck and Cerberus made little gratified, whimpering noises and slobbered all over her. It was kind of grotesque.

‘Best guard dog I ever had,’ said Aunty Dot, turning round at last and wiping her milky eyes. ‘Until Zeus took him off me and said he had to guard the underworld instead.’

As the Furies began flapping and moaning again, she went on, ‘Yes, I know, I know, but I am here for a good reason. Where’s Orion? It is time for him to repent, so that
his soul can go to the Elysian fields, and he can blow his horn.’

Orion glimmered faintly in shock. Then he stepped forward.

‘Orion, king of hunters,’ said Aunty Dot, in a loud, resonant voice that all the dogs recognized at once, ‘persecutor of the animal kingdom, what have you to say for yourself?’

Orion hung his head and mumbled something.

‘Eh?’ said Aunty Dot, sounding just for a moment uncannily like Aunty Lilith. ‘What was that?’

Orion hung his head even further and mumbled again.

‘Can’t hear you,’ boomed the strange being known as Aunty Dot. ‘Speak up, man!’

A spasm of irritation crossed Orion’s handsome, transparent face. ‘I said I’m sorry!’ he snapped.

‘Sorry for what?’ said Aunty Dot sternly. ‘You once claimed to be sorry only for boasting about your misdeeds.’

If possible, Orion turned even paler than he already was. But he looked straight into Aunty Dot’s milky eyes.

‘I am sorry for all the damage I have done,’ he said clearly. ‘I am sorry for my arrogance, in thinking that the animal world was put there only for me to destroy. I am sorry for abusing my skills as a hunter and for killing without rhyme or reason. I am sorry for setting myself above nature and for misusing my considerable talents.’

He finished with just a touch of the old arrogance. Aunty Dot held up one skinny, claw-like hand.

‘You are sorry,’ she said, ‘for taking all these lives?’

And suddenly the underworld was full of animals. A shady multitude of stags and wild boar, cattle, sheep, horses, wolves, warthogs, tigers, lizards, fish and even insects filled the gloomy plains surrounding them and gazed at Orion with glowing eyes. A murmuring roar swelled, then subsided.

Checkers, Flo, Boris, Gentleman Jim and Pico huddled together in dismay, and Orion groaned aloud in anguish.

‘Orion, master hunter,’ said Aunty Dot in ringing, yet sorrowful tones, ‘you boasted that you could kill any animal that the world produced – and you made good your boast. Look around you. See the results of your arrogance and your thirst for blood.’

‘No – no!’ moaned Orion, but Aunty Dot was inexorable.

‘Because of you, all these animals that might have lived happily on earth, enjoying the sun and the moon, and the fruits of forest, field and sea, have been condemned forever to the gloomy caverns of Tartarus, where no light shines. You placed yourself above all the living creatures of the earth and that is where your light shines now. The light from your stars illuminates the earth and all mankind looks up to you. And because of you mankind continues to lay waste to the animal kingdom. What have you got to say for yourself?’

Orion’s great shoulders heaved. ‘What can I say?’ he cried. ‘It is true. I deserve only to die!’

‘You cannot die, immortal one,’ said Aunty Dot, as the Furies hissed. ‘You can only change. And you can only do that if these animals forgive you.’

Now Orion hung his head again. ‘I do not deserve forgiveness,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ said Aunty Dot. ‘But it is not up to you. It is up to the animals.’

When Aunty Dot finished speaking there was complete silence in the underworld. The ghostly multitude of animals remained motionless. Orion closed his great shining eyes and two shining tears fell from them.

But before they could fall to his feet, Pico dashed towards him.

‘I forgive you,’ he said, as Orion looked down at him in wonder. ‘You are my friend.’

And as if this action broke some kind of spell, the swelling murmur began again, rising to a roar. Slowly the sea of animals moved towards Orion. Vast and numberless, animals old and new, with any number of legs and eyes, some with tails, some without, and some of them completely unidentifiable, wreathed around him like smoke, pushing and jostling, and he reached out to them, lifted up his voice and wept.

Then, from the heart of the vast multitude, two dogs forced their way towards Orion. One was much larger than the other, but they both gleamed like starlight. They pushed their muzzles into his hands and his face shone suddenly with astonished joy. Then, as he sank to his knees, they licked his face.

‘Sirius!’ he cried. ‘Procyon! Oh, my two faithful companions! My beloved dogs!’ He buried his face in their pelts.

Aunty Dot sat back on a rock and watched them with a faint smile on her lips and her milky eyes full of tears. ‘I love a happy ending,’ she murmured, and Cerberus laid all three heads in her lap.

Only the Furies didn’t seem too happy.

‘You have interfered with our prey,’
the nearest one screeched, rising and flying above Aunty Dot’s head.
‘Orion was ours!’

‘Oh, get over it,’ said Aunty Dot. ‘Because of what has happened here, the whole of the human race can change, and we can get on with building a new world. Which reminds me –’

And she rose to her feet and gave a piercing whistle.

Flo, Checkers, Boris, Gentleman Jim and Pico all felt the summons immediately and tore themselves away from the ghostly beasts surrounding Orion. They each came to stand by Aunty Dot, feeling that they had experienced something wonderful and overwhelming.

Around Orion the crowd of animals grew still and at last the hunter looked up, the tears still streaming down his face. Aunty Dot smiled at him. She seemed somehow to know where he was and what was happening, in spite of her milky eyes.

‘Berry,’ she said, and the great Hound of Hades gazed up at her adoringly. ‘It’s up to you. Will you let Orion’s soul pass on, now that he has repented, to its place of rest?’

‘
WHATEVER YOU SAY
,’
the great beast purred- impossible to imagine the Hound of Hades purring, yet that is what he did.