of the hounds became louder as they crested the hill. They poured over in a mottled flood, spilling down the slope. Two or three were out in front, running after him with enormous, raking strides. Behind flickered a shape with a blotched, blobby head.
The demon was with them — driving them on! Wolf ran faster. He hit a patch of slippery grass, his feet shot away and he fell, knocking the breath from his lungs.
A band of horsemen rode over the skyline, thin spears pricking the wind. The clamour of the dog pack was close now, savage and eager. Wolf scrambled up, his heart banging in clumsy strokes. Here they come! The front-runners were huge. He saw the grinning white teeth in sharp black jaws, the laid-back ears and mad light eyes, the long mud-splattered legs that reached and stretched in fluent bounds…
Wolves! Not dogs at all, but wolves!
He shrieked and brandished his arms. The leading wolf leaped aside in a racing swerve. The other two followed, dashing by at a safe distance. He saw now how tired they were, with glazed eyes and lolling tongues. And with a strange hoarse cry the demon brushed past him, mushroom white except for the red blotch like spilled wine down half its face. Wolf shrank back. It ran stooping, on its hind legs, and was smaller than he’d thought. It had no tail and—
“Hey!” he yelled incredulously, straightening up. “Hey!”
A narrow, bare back and thin buttocks disappeared into the bracken. What he’d thought was a huge head was a tangled mass of greyish-blond hair.
A child? A dirty little child?
No time to think. Horses were coming down the slope at a drumming gallop, and he was in the way —trapped between the wolves and the hunt. The riders had seen him. The horn sounded a bevy of urgent notes, and over the din of the approaching hounds he heard a furious shout:
“Dex aie! Garson! Gar les chiens!”
For God’s sake, boy, beware of the dogs! Wolf was already running again. Those deep broken barks and yammering yells frightened him to the core. The riders were hollering: “Sy, sy avaunt!”
“Avaunt, ha ha! Sy, dons sy!”
“A moy, Bailemonde! A moy, Argos! So howe, so howe!”
Wolf plunged into the bracken where the child had disappeared. The ferns grew breast high, and dragged at his feet and caught at his voluminous robe. He tore through, hearing close behind the crackle and rustle as the dogs threw themselves after him.
Wolf burst out of the bracken. The ground fell away into a V-shaped dingle, a valley like a deep gutter with a white stream spouting over rocks at the bottom. Trees grew up its slopes. Wolf jumped. For a second he was flying, untouchable. Then his boots sank deep into last year’s slimy leaves. He pitched on to hands and knees, got up and ran on. The riders would have to be crazy to gallop down such a bank, but nothing would stop the dogs.
Climb something, you fool —get out of their way! He thrust into the bushes that grew up the sides of the dingle and swung into a holly tree, scrambling as high as he could into its bouncing branches. He hung there, his breath whistling. White sparks danced before his eyes.
The dogs came boiling over the edge of the dingle, leaping down the slope, lean, rough-haired greyhounds and powerful, broad-chested alaunts bred to grip and kill. After them, black against the darkening sky came a rider on a big horse. The horse checked at the drop, half rearing. Then it sprang out. Earth flew from its iron-shod hooves. The rider yelled as they crashed into the bushes, and his long spear ripped through the leaves. A second horseman followed, and a third.
Wolf pressed his face against the damp tree bark and closed his eyes. He whispered a faint prayer. Safe! He was safe! They’d gone past without seeing him.
Further down the dingle, hidden by trees, the baying of the dogs rose to a violent crescendo and the men shouted. They had a wolf at bay. Wolf heard the thud of a spear going home, and a long, sobbing howl, which shot up into a wild shriek and ended in a spine-crawling, choking cough.
The horn sounded for the death — a series of hurrying, victorious toots. From the hillside above came answering whoops and horn calls — then curses and laughter as the rest of the huntsmen reached the top of the steep bank and began cautiously urging their horses down.
Safe in the holly, Wolf clung to the branches and listened to the thump and scuffle of hooves. He peered through the darkly prickled leaves. The men and horses sounded solid enough. He could hear the horses snorting and the riders speaking in French like noblemen. There were no devils trotting by on fiery-eyed goats.
Yet hadn’t they been hunting a child — that mysterious child? He shivered, and in his mind’s eye the real dogs he’d seen faded and blended into the Devil’s black hounds chasing the naked and terrified souls of the damned.
No! He shook his head. The child had been real flesh and blood, the dogs had been ordinary dogs, and as for the riders, devils wouldn’t speak French.
Or perhaps they would; he didn’t know. But he couldn’t stay in this tree all night. He dropped stiffly to the ground. At a safe distance he followed the switching tail of the last horse. Soon he saw a hastily lit fire crackling in a trampled clearing, and the dusk turning blue around it.
The fire glowed on reds and browns: the ruddy coats of the steaming horses, and their red leather harness, cut in scallops; the huntsmen wore red tunics and long leather boots. One stood leaning on his spear. He must be the lord, the master of the hunt. He was watching his men skin the one wolf they’d caught. It lay stretched on the ground near the fire. They had cut off the head and stuck it on a spear, where its white teeth gleamed in a frozen snarl.
Wolf lurked in the undergrowth. Just as he gathered his courage to walk out and be seen, there was a roar of rough laughter at some joke. He lost his nerve. They might help him. Or they might punish him, for getting in the way of the hounds.
Smoke blew towards him, and a smell of churned-up leaves. Triumphant dogs ran about wagging their tails and peeing on the bushes. Their mood had completely changed; they were no longer a danger. One of them dashed up to Wolf and seized his wrist in its mouth, play-chewing with blunt teeth. It was a tall white greyhound, a beautiful, lordly creature wearing a broad collar of gilded leather. Wolf pulled his hand away and drew back, afraid of being noticed.
“No,” he whispered. “Off with you. Go on!”
The greyhound took no notice. It swung its thin tail, looking eagerly into his face. It thinks I’m one of the hunters. It’s hoping for scraps. Wolf backed further into the trees, ducking under the spiky branches of a clump of hawthorns, but the dog followed.
“Go away!” Wolf grasped the thick leather band around its throat and tried to make the dog turn. It resisted, lifting a strong, shaggy foreleg and pawing his knee. Wolf found himself rubbing its neck and scratching its ears. It pushed affectionately against his hand — then stiffened, looking sharply beyond him. Wolf turned, his fingers still hooked through the collar. He couldn’t see anything, but the dog apparently could. It set off with a bound.
Wolf followed without even thinking. With the friendly dog at his side he felt safe for the first time in hours. As it dragged him deeper into the wood, a glorious idea dawned on him. If a valuable hound ran off, wouldn’t there be a reward for the person who found it? He could wait a while, and then take it back and say he’d found it straying, which was almost true. The lord of the hunt would be a rich knight, a nobleman. Men like that
