The Devil in Green (31 page)

Drawing his sword, Hipgrave cautiously approached. The others
followed, keeping watch on all sides.

Beyond the barrier, they could just make out a series of shadowy pits
scattered seemingly randomly. They were surrounded by a complex
arrangement of twisted bramble torn from another location, and more
embedded branches that had been fashioned into lethal-looking spikes.

'It's a maze,' Daniels said.

'What's behind all this?' Gardener said uncomfortably.

'Call out to him,' Miller said, patently hoping they wouldn't have to
venture further.

'I don't think it would be too good an idea to announce our presence.'
Mallory moved up beside Hipgrave to scrutinise the area more closely.
'It's a trap. Got to be.'

Hipgrave had already come around to the same way of thinking. 'If he's
in there, we've got to go in. It's our duty.'

'I know,' Mallory replied, 'but the question is, is he really in there?'

'You think all this is .some kind of elaborate plan to get at us?' Daniels
said. 'With all due respect to my esteemed colleagues, we're not worth the
effort.'

'Look, here.' Mallory pointed to a route amongst the pits and barricades. 'If you go carefully, you can enter. But you wouldn't be able to get
out at speed. It'd be easy to slip into those pits - God knows what's at the

bottom of them - or trip and get caught up in the brambles, or fall on those
spikes. It's cunning, in a basic kind of way. Even worse if it's dark. We
should leave it till morning.'

Hipgrave fingered his chin nervously, but kept his implacable face
turned towards the pits. Mallory could see that the captain didn't know
what to do, and was desperate not to make the wrong decision.

'He looked all right when he went in, didn't he?' Mallory pressed. 'We
can afford to wait.'

But just as he appeared to have swayed Hipgrave, Miller piped up,
'Whatever built all this might have got him.'

Mallory flashed him a black look, but it was already too late. 'OK,'
Hipgrave ventured uncertainly. 'We go in, but with extreme caution.
Draw your swords.'

'What kind of thing would do something like this?' Gardener said again.
He sounded sickened.

'Maybe it's not here right now,' Miller said, with forced brightness. 'We
could get the vicar, get out and be off.'

'Maybe it's out hunting,' Daniels said blackly, 'for a few more little
birds.'

'Those are the things it
doesn't
eat,' Mallory said. They all fell silent at
that.

To his credit, Hipgrave led the way. The stink of decomposing animal
flesh was unbearable as they passed the boundary line. Beyond it, the
entire area felt different; it was almost too subtle to register, but it hummed
away insistently deep in their subconscious: a sense of tension, a feeling of
detachment as if they were just waking, or just falling asleep. The wind
disappeared completely.

Mallory stuck close behind Hipgrave, followed by Daniels, then Miller,
with Gardener bringing up the rear.

'I don't hear any sign of him,' Hipgrave hissed. 'He could have fallen
into one of the pits . . . unconscious . . .'

Mallory wasn't listening for the cleric's cries - he no longer believed
they would ever hear them.

At the first pit, they all peered inside in turn. The clustering shadows
gave the illusion that it went down for ever, though from the echoes of a
displaced pebble Mallory guessed it was no more than fifteen feet deep. A
damp, vegetative smell rose from within.

The construction of bramble and spike was complex and deadly, hinting
at the arrays of barriers and barbed wire that littered First World War
battlefields. It was impossible to tell what kind of intelligence could have
established it, how long it had been in place. It was structured to form an
impenetrable obstacle in some areas while simultaneously serving to direct
them along a prescribed route that wasn't clearly visible from a distance.
As they walked the precarious path amongst the pits - some of which were
shallower than others, barely trenches - Mallory was struck by the design.

'It's like a ritual pattern you see in some ancient structures,' he said.
Hipgrave was clearly suspicious of this show of information. 'It was
symbolic, designed to put you in the right frame of mind before the
revelation of some secret or mystery.'

'Listen,' Daniels interrupted. 'Can you hear anything?'

They halted, bumping into each other nervously. The wind had picked
up again faintly, soughing along the edges of the area so it was difficult to
identify any other sounds. But as their ears adjusted, they could just make
out another noise, low and rough, rising and falling.

'What is it?' Miller looked like a ghost in the twilight.

Mallory knew what it sounded like, and he could tell that Daniels and
Gardener thought the same: breathing.

At their backs, darkness drew close to the horizon.

The path wound amongst the barriers until they were presented with a
pit that hadn't been visible before. They knew instantly it was what they
had been working towards. It stood alone, large and round where the
others had been ragged holes torn from the turf and soil; its sides sloped
down, but it was positioned so that the fading light allowed them to see the
eighteen or so feet to the bottom where five dark holes indicated branching
tunnels. More bleached skulls had been carefully placed around the
perimeter, all looking out. Next to it, two tree branches had been strapped
together with brambles in the shape of a tilting cross, a marker, and from it
hung the tattered remnants of some kind of pelt.

'Oh Lord, I have a horrible feeling about this,' Miller muttered.

'That makes two of us,' Gardener said in a low, gruff voice that didn't
draw attention to itself.

'If he's anywhere, he'll be down there,' Hipgrave noted. He peered into
the depths, then spied something. 'Here!' He proudly showed them a
shiny cuff link.

'There you go again,' Mallory said.

Hipgrave drew himself up in a bid to imbue himself with some
gravitas.
'OK, Mallory, you'd better go down, check it out—'

'You can't send him down there!' Miller protested. 'Not alone!'

'We're not going to risk all of us.' Hipgrave's demeanour left no doubt
that he had made his mind up; it was pointless Mallory arguing. 'The
sooner he gets down there, the sooner we can all get out of here.'

Steeling himself, Mallory stepped over the edge and skidded down the
slope in jerks. At the bottom it was cold and there was an unpleasant smell
of decomposition drifting from one of the tunnels. He looked around: no
footprints anywhere; there was no point mentioning it to Hipgrave - he'd
long since given up listening to reason. The knights were all peering over
the edge, their faces white. They all looked human, their emotions clear -
apprehension, bravery, compassion, contempt - and he couldn't help
thinking back to the glimpsed face of the cleric and the gulf between the
two.