 
### Blood of Angels,

### Wings of Men

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children's books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas – The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

Text copyright© 2017 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

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Thank you for your support.

# Chapter 1

It's the last village before the new border; how many of our dead troops have they seen come forlornly walking back through here?

You can sense the fear, the hopelessness here.

Is it any use me asking them if they've seen Bjorn?

He's dead, I'm sure of it. Every soldier who's gone out to the new border has only ever come back dead.

But I'm also sure he'd want to get a message to me; that he'd want to deliver it himself, if possible.

And now I'm so close to where he must have fallen, there's an even greater chance of me meeting up with him once again.

Even if it's only for him to repeat what he'd told me when he was still alive.

That my regiment should turn around. That, if they don't, then I should desert my troop.

They're all going to die anyway.

One less amongst their number is hardly going to make much of a difference.

*

I slip down from my horse with a grateful sigh, taking off my helmet and letting my hair tumble free, relishing the coolness of the air.

All around me, the other girls are doing the same.

Not that we can rest just yet. The horses have to be fed, watered, and gradually cooled down themselves to make sure they don't fall prey to any maladies.

We ignore the iron-hard stares of the villagers.

Any solider is hated, but the female troops are abhorred far more than the men.

You could see that loathing in their otherwise blank, joyless eyes as we rode in, the lack of any horns rising up from our helmets the only thing to differentiate us from the male troops, but enough for them to regard us with an extra dollop of scorn.

The villagers know our sacrifice is a hopeless gesture. They don't admire us for trying to keep the enemy at bay; they loathe us for our inability to send our foes falling back to wherever it was they came from.

And therefore they blame us for the danger they're in.

They know that soon – even though they're not trained for it; they're just farmers, fishermen, carpenters – they'll be the ones left to defend their village from whatever onslaught eventually comes their way.

The women, even the children, will be expected to lay down their lives in a vain attempt to prevent the village from falling. That's why the women hate us so; because, of course, being mothers, they would prefer that their children at least were spared. Yet as girls like my troop have demonstrated that we can fight – that we can die – as well as any man, then they have no excuse to flee.

As for the men of the village; we make them feel even more especially worthless.

Girls defending the borders; while they stay home to plough the fields, or their fat little wives.

What use is food to keep us alive in a land that daily falls to the enemy?

What use offspring if they are soon to die?

If the children lived long enough to fight – _then_ they might be of use to us!

On the sour faces of the villagers gathering around us, I can see they are thinking the same as I am; what's the point of it all? All this striving to gain a living from a tormenting land, only to face death at the hands of a merciless foe.

They know we'll leave only to – probably less than a week later – forlornly return, walking blankly through their village as we make our way home. Seeking out our loved ones, to see them one last time before we at last give up the ghost.

When the souls of the dead walk by you like this, it's a disconcerting experience; if they pass through you, you're left feeling cold, clammy.

There's no warmth to them. No joy.

Their new mission is only to say goodbye, and they don't wish to be interrupted from their self-appointed task.

Yes, you can stop them if you wish, to ask them the most fleeting of questions: 'Is _everyone_ dead?' 'Are you from the Eighth Legion?'

But what's the point of asking such questions anyway?

You know the answer to the first, while the second answer will hardly enlighten you in any meaningful form; if the Eighth Legion were the last to pass this way on their way to the front, then the chances are the dead filing past you are their returning souls.

As the dead had silently passed trough our troop, I'd naturally looked out for Bjorn.

I'd flattered myself that it would be me that he would be searching out to say his final goodbyes to; not his parents, his brothers.

I must have been wrong, for I never saw him.

I have heard of the legend of the Twentieth Legion and the Ninth Troop.

It happened so long ago, supposedly, that no one could be really sure if it had happened or not.

I'd like to think that it did happen, of course.

As the women of the Twentieth had made their way into battle, the men of the returning Ninth had flowed through them; and there were so many lovers amongst them that both formations briefly came to a tearful halt as the living and dead enjoyed a last embrace.

Unfortunately, it seems there'll be no such last embrace for Bjorn and I.

*

Towards the edge of the village, there's a burst of excited cries as one of our patrols returns, escorting a dilapidated wagon driven by a miserable-faced farmer.

Two of our soldiers stand alongside him on the seat, clinging to the wagon's partially covered, overarching steel frames. Their horses are being led by those still mounted, with tightly bound prisoners – two women, although one of them appears particularly tall, even seated – in the saddles. A large, mangy dog happily runs alongside, completely oblivious to the trouble his master and mistress are undoubtedly in.

They've probably fled their farm, though I can't see why that's led to their detention; no one expects anyone to attempt defending anything so small and worthless.

Then I catch glimpses of a heavy chainmail lying beneath the taller woman's simple if overly long coat.

No farmer could afford that. Only a soldier.

And if she's alive, then it can only be because she's a deserter.

Not that she remains completely useless to us.

She'll be made an example of; to make sure no one else even considers deserting the troop.

Even worse for her, that 'example' will entail a slow, extremely painful death: and not simply to make the 'example' more memorable for us all.

She will accompany and help transport our shaman into the otherworld, where we might obtain answers to more complicated questions than those we can ask our own dead.

I glance over to where I last saw our shaman; yes, he's looking towards the deserter with an eager grin on his face.

Our shaman will have many questions to ask in the otherworld.

How many do we face?

Where are they most likely to attack us?

How long can we expect to hold them off?

There's no point asking if we might win.

Once again, it's one of the questions we all already know the answer to.

Our only hope is to take as many of them with us as we can. (The truth is, I've heard fearfully whispered, is that every enemy who falls takes out maybe forty, fifty of us.)

As the deserter undergoes her lingering death, no one watching could possibly wish to risk ending up in the same position.

I've seen it many times, as many of our soldiers have, cringing internally at the judicious slicing of skin and sinew, the severing of body parts, all of it as unhurriedly well-ordered as any other religious sacrament.

As the man or woman screams for mercy, you would willingly grant them the swift death they crave, if it weren't for the fear that you'll end up taking their place.

Anyone who's seen such a thing can never fail to wonder why so many continue to desert.

Even so, of the two bound riders, it's the other woman who appears to be the most ashamed and frightened. She hides her bowed head beneath a wayward tangle of hair she's thrown forwards across her face.

The soldier rides tall and straight, despite any beating she must have undoubtedly suffered.

She holds her head high, as if in reality she's some commanding officer only captured after a worthy and admirable fight.

As if she's still worthy to be called a warrior, rather than the coward she really is.

As the troop and their captives draw closer, I at last begin to make out more of our deserter.

I was wrong when I thought this solider was a woman; it's a man, but he no longer has the horns that would once have risen proudly up from his helmet – these have already been severed by his captors, the well deserved fate of any deserter.

The closer the deserter approaches, the more I can make out his facial features – and I'm surprised to see that, despite his deliberate humiliation, he's keeping his jaw firm, while his eyes are set sternly facing straight ahead.

I couldn't fail to recognise that arrogant nonchalance.

It's Bjorn.

*

# Chapter 2

Now I know why I hadn't seen Bjorn pass us by as he made his way back towards our own village.

He never died.

He deserted.

And there was me, telling myself I was worrying unnecessarily, that he was probably one of those who preferred to stay by the battlefield, lamenting the loss of so many good warriors for so little purpose.

Even if he'd headed home, I'd reassured myself, he would simply have taken a more difficult, more challenging route – just for the hell of it all.

That would be just like Bjorn – the Bjorn I _thought_ I knew.

Now he has managed to bring his message to me; a message of the utmost shame for both of us, for in cavorting with him I have lowered myself to having relations with a coward.

As for any brat coming out of that unfortunate relationship, he or she would have been better off staying with the gods rather than forever being branded as the spawn of a coward and a fool.

Even before the scouting party draws to a complete halt in the centre of the village, some of the girls dash forward to unceremoniously drag Bjorn down from his horse. With his arms bound, there's no way for him to absorb the worst of the fall, other than to throw himself into the best roll he can manage under the circumstances.

Before he can make any attempt to rise to his feet, the girls are on him, striking him hard in the face with their fists, or kicking him hard in the ribs.

They do take care, however, to avoid causing him serious injury.

The shaman is closely taking note of their every action.

He doesn't want his companion to the underworld damaged in any way that might affect their journey.

All the hurt and agony will come later, as they both undertake that journey.

He frowns angrily as Bjorn refuses to cry out despite the punishment. He rushes forward to carelessly push the soldiers aside.

Bending down by Bjorn, the shaman brutally forces his mouth open, only smiling with relived satisfaction when he sees that the tongue is still there.

_Good_ , you can see him thinking.

_That_ will be sliced later, at the most opportune moment.

*

Can I really let Bjorn suffer in this way?

Bjorn, who I lay with before he left to go off towards the front.

We had no need to take any precautions as we'd writhed in the long grass of the meadow.

We both thought we would both be dead within the half-year at the most.

Naturally, some girls had got their timing wrong. Particularly those whose lovers went out with the legions who'd left earlier.

The former are already displaying signs that they're with child. The latter are heavily pregnant, to the point where they're almost completely useless to us, truth be told.

It will be an especially glorious death for them, our commanding officer has informed them – for they will be taking with them their brave offspring, who'll also be dying for our noble cause.

Their babes will soon be in conversation with the gods they only recently left behind to briefly visit our world.

I'm one of the lucky ones; the ones who passionately parted with our lovers and yet – the gods be praised – we're displaying none of the usual symptoms announcing that we've brought a new life into our world.

Not _yet_ , anyway.

While he has a tightly bound Bjorn at his mercy, the shaman swiftly and uncaringly runs through a well practised examination, inspecting his chosen companion for any marks or injuries that might make him less than perfect for his appointed task.

Bjorn's wrists are badly scared, horrifically burnt, a self-inflicted childhood injury from when he held them for as long as he could in the flames of a fire, regarding it as a test of his will power. Will that count against him? Could, ironically, that terrible imperfection save him from being sacrificed in the most torturous way anyone could imagine?

The shaman rises to his feet with a smug, satisfied grin.

He hasn't seen the burnt wrists. They're hidden from view by the tightly binding ropes.

Bjorn doesn't seem to be making any attempt to search me out from everyone here, even though he'll have seen the banners of my troop fluttering from the standards firmly planted in the midst of the village.

As they passed through here, the standards of his own legion most have also been proudly displayed here on the village's green. As, so long, long ago, the standards of the Twentieth Legion and the Ninth Troop must have also proudly fluttered on some village green.

How could Bjorn have betrayed the ideas of sacrifice and loyalty that those standards represent?

Perhaps I'm being too hard, too unfair, on him.

Maybe he faced insurmountable odds.

Maybe he was knocked unconscious, and awoke to find his whole troop massacred.

Surely, when he talked of deserting, it was only _my_ life he was hoping to save?

Just as, as I see him doing now, he's making no attempt to include me in his shameful fall from glory.

Or am I simply making excuses for him, simply to assuage my own shame in having loved him?

Whatever the truth of the matter, I realise I can't watch him slowly die as he's tortured to ensure the shaman has a companion on his journey into the underworld.

As Bjorn is brutally hoisted up onto his feet, his mouth is also tightly bound now that he's in the presence of raw troops, of easily terrified villagers.

No one wants to hear his lies.

No one wants to hear thing that might make them fight less bravely.

I stride towards Bjorn. Standing directly before him, staring intently into his eyes to ensure he's fully aware of the hate and disgust I feel for him, I make a loud proclamation to everyone in hearing.

'He was engaged to marry me,' I yell bitterly.

*

# Chapter 3

Bjorn's eyes sparkle; he knows why I've lied.

He's thankful for my lie. He's proud of me

How can I tell all this simply from the look in his eyes?

I _knew_ him, remember? I _loved_ him.

This is _my_ sacrifice for _him_.

I'm accepting his shame as mine.

And there's only one way to alleviate that shame.

It's a shame that can't be wholly eradicated, of course, especially Bjorn's; but hopefully this will spare him the shaman's torturous journey.

The shaman knows this too – he's glowering at me with barely withheld fury. He knows how all this must now be played out.

The looks I'm getting from the other girls are no less scornful than his. There are even angry cries of 'Shame' and far worse.

'My task is of far more importance than allowing her to lessen her shame!' the shaman declares to the nearest captain, effectively calling upon her to adjudicate on how Bjorn should die.

Captain Nerlis glances my way, almost as angry with me as the shaman is for putting her in this position; after all, I deserve to suffer my shame, and the shaman's journey is indeed of the utmost importance to us.

Nevertheless, if I'm prepared to go through with the necessary procedures, then the rules state I have that right

'You can have the woman, Shaman,' the captain coolly announces.

For the first time, Bjorn looks startled, furious even. He briefly but fruitlessly struggles to break free of the firm grip that the soldiers standing alongside have on his arms.

The woman might not have any real knowledge of what the captain's order entails for her, but she's sensible enough to recognise that it can't be good; like Bjorn, she makes a vain attempt to struggle free of the soldiers who have dragged her down from her horse. The waggon's driver is also shocked and horrified by the announcement, and although he isn't being held by anyone when he first begins to protest, he's soon brought down with a swift blow of a mailed fist to the back of his head.

I doubt if anyone isn't startled by the captain's decision to place the poor woman in the shaman's hands. It's one thing for a deserter to suffer the shaman's journey, another entirely to inflict it upon a farmer's wife.

The captain holds my eyes, daring me to protest.

This is a part of my punishment, to know that I'll be responsible for the woman's nightlong agony.

There's no going back now, however.

As I withdraw my sword, a sign that I accept my task, the soldiers securing Bjorn force him to his knees before me. In the same motion, the gag is whipped clear of his mouth, in the hope that the cowardly deserter will humiliate himself further by screaming for mercy.

Bjorn doesn't plead for mercy.

He glances up at me, grins his thanks.

'Don't fear the Hellhound, Heliq,' he says brightly; then bows his head, waiting for my strike to his head.

I hesitate; just what did he mean by that?

That I'll be facing hell for taking his life?

The life of my lover, perhaps even the father of any child already lying deep inside me.

Does this man really deserve to be the first victim of my blade?

'Strike now, Heliq!' the captain growls bitterly. 'Or join him fully in his shame!'

I raise my sword.

I swiftly bring it down, as cleanly straight as I can manage.

Severing Bjorn's head is much easier than I could possibly have imagined it to be.

*

Bjorn's face is frozen into his familiar smile as his head rolls across the ground.

My face is stony by comparison. It would be shameful to shed a tear for him.

Naturally, I didn't want to be the one that took his life; the whole act felt repugnant and wrong to me, despite this being an easier way out for Bjorn than the shaman would have allowed him.

And yet, _physically_ the severing of his head was almost ridiculously effortless; as if, crazily, his head hadn't even been properly attached in the first place.

That's impossible, of course; not only was Bjorn walking, talking, but the shaman had carefully inspected him for any strange marks or wounds.

Around me now, there's a bewildered, fearful mumbling rising up over the wailing of the bound woman.

'What demonic trickery is _this_?' the shaman furiously scowls.

I don't know what he means at first.

And then I see what everyone else has already noticed.

There's no blood.

*

# Chapter 4

'He was a _good_ man!'

When the woman shrieks this out, I presume she's referring to the wagon driver, whom I've taken to be her husband.

'Why kill him?' she demands. 'He was _helping_ us!'

She means Bjorn.

Why was Bjorn helping them?

'All the _more_ reason for him to die!' gleefully cries out one of the higher ranking members of the scouts who had brought them in. 'She's an _angel_ mother!'

Any pity that anyone might have felt for the woman immediately dissipates.

Now she suffers the jeering not only of the surrounding troops but even, too, of the villagers – many of whom must have known this couple if their farm lies nearby.

Where is this baby? I wonder, glancing apprehensively towards the wagon.

Still in there, no doubt,

Dead, now, of course.

Someone will have killed it as soon as they saw the tiny wings.

As we're all under orders to do.

If Bjorn offered protection to these people and their demonic spawn, then I can only reason that he had given up any notion of loyalty to his people.

Of course, the parents (or rather, _parent_ : the baby couldn't possibly be her husband's – and yet the cuckolded are so often fooled into accepting these cuckoos as their own) must have done all they could to hide any signs of wings, as we're warned to look out for when coming across anyone with a baby.

Like us, the parents of any Angel babe are supposed to kill their child as soon as they realise he or she isn't fully human. Even if the mother finds it hard to go through with this, the husband should surely delight in the task, rather than being willing to raise the child of an angelic father.

How many signs does a man need to know his wife has betrayed him?

Men have left for the wars, with their spouses only showing the usual symptoms of pregnancy almost a half year after his departure. The time the child spends in the womb is also remarkably unnatural, being a few months at most.

'The demon child!'

One of the girls has either clambered into or through the covered wagon, dragging out the dead baby. She holds the corpse up high by the ankle, dangling it as unceremoniously as any butchered piglet.

There's a rush forward to get a closer look at the angel child.

From a distance, it appears as pathetic and pitiful as any dead babe. Despite my revulsion, I also feel a need to draw closer, to see at least these wings we have heard so much about, for we have never been shown any examples.

The adult angels, the soldiers, rise up through the sky on wings of fire, we have been warned.

The bow and the arrow; these are the most effective weapons against them, we're informed in our training.

And so I'm disappointed when I get up close to this minute little corpse and see not wings of fire at all but what could be the minute wings of a wren, only feathered with the snowy white flames of the most glorious of swans.

The wings don't even sprout from the babe's back, which seems as clear and regular as any another child's. There's a pair of wings on the ankle of the leg that swings loosely and awkwardly from the babe's hip, another pair partially crushed beneath the hard grip of the solider.

There are two further pairs on the child's wrists, quite beautiful in the way they sparkle in the light.

It's a sight that can't help but make me think of Bjorn's heavily scarred and burnt wrists.

But he didn't have wings on his ankles.

Did he?

*

My punishment for thwarting the shaman of his prized companion continues.

I've been set to guard the woman until it's dark enough to go ahead with the procedures that will satisfactorily transform her into an underworld guide.

She's serves as a constant reminder to me that her suffering will all, ultimately, be down to me.

If she spends all her time wailing, or begging for compassion, all the better, as far as my superiors are concerned.

It's also a test; will I try and free her, demonstrating that I'm every bit as untrustworthy as Bjorn the deserter and traitor?

There'll be other troops nearby, keeping a watch on me; _my_ guards.

All trust in me has now evaporated.

The woman isn't wailing. She's not even weeping.

I think she's accepted what's about to happen to her, perhaps even regarding it as a fitting penalty for being unable to protect her child.

She's not much older than I am.

At least she _had_ a child, even if it was a demonic one.

Me, I'll be dead long before Bjorn's demonic child begins taking form inside me.

That, of course, is all for the best. In so _many_ ways.

Who was Bjorn really?

_What_ was he?

Is it possible that his wrist scars hid the earlier removal of his wings?

Could he really have been an _angel's_ child?

If so, his parents never displayed any signs of suspecting it.

I never heard any tales of them trying to hide him away when he was first born; no tales of Bjorn's family one day turning up unexpectedly in our village.

Besides, there were no stories at that time of angelic children being born to women. We weren't even aware that angels were anything but kindly visitors, who appeared only rarely and then purely to the most fortunate of people.

Now, of course, there are countless women spawning demonic children. And the angels have been revealed to be a malignant force who wishes all humans dead.

Am _I_ carrying a demonic child?

I'll never know, thankfully.

'You won't die,' the woman abruptly says to me, almost as if she has been listening to me, as if I've been blabbing out everything that's nagging at my mind.

'What? What do you mean?'

I should just order her to shut up; she's my prisoner, after all.

'Your friends: _they_ will all die,' she continues coolly. 'But not you.'

I have to restrain my urge to draw my sword and kill her dead with one brutal slash.

Is that what she wants? Is she hoping to cause me such anguish and hate for her that I unintentionally spare her the shaman's journey?

_Hah_! As if I'd be _so_ stupid.

Then _I'd_ be the shaman's companion!

I _won't_ betray my friends!

I may have been foolish enough to become Bjorn's lover; but that doesn't _make_ me _him_!

'I can see you're offended by what I said.'

'You see _too_ much,' I growl cruelly. 'And you'll be seeing far more tonight than you had ever feared you'd see.'

'I saw _things_ when I was carrying Keris: my girl,' the woman says with the first hint of sadness I've caught in her voice.

'All pregnant women see _things_ ,' I reply nonchalantly. 'The child is newly arrived from the spirit world; they always bring to their mothers a brief sense of contact with that world.'

She shakes her head.

'No, no; not just in _that_ sense,' she protests. 'I mean, I saw that – eventually, and unstoppably – this _will_ be the time of angels.'

I shrug.

'We can't stop them; it needs no insight to see such a world lying ahead of us.'

'It's for the best, though; _that's_ what I mean. It's _meant_ to be.'

'I do believe the shaman has a worthy guide for his journey,' I sneer irately, abruptly adding with even more bitterness than I'd intended, 'Why did Bjorn help you?'

Now she's the one who shrugs.

'He was your man?' she asks unsurely; perhaps being a little unsure after seeing me sever his head from his shoulders.

Has she deliberately avoided answering my question?

I'm more irritated by her than ever.

'I wouldn't betray him the way you betrayed your man, if that's what you mean.'

I don't want to say I was in love with Bjorn.

_I'm_ definitely avoiding _that_.

'Keris was my husband's child.'

She says it flatly, as if she's had to make this very same declaration countless times.

Perhaps her husband had initially had his doubts after all.

I chuckle, a guffaw that obviously says I don't believe it.

'I think I'd know if I'd lain with an angel, don't you?' she snaps back.

'So, these angel babes; they're just born like that, are they?'

'Yes; it seems so. I've heard it said that there's a phial of blood, taken from an angel long ago; and if someone slips it into your drink or food, it's _that_ that can cause you to have an angel child!'

'And could she fly, your angel babe?' I ask, a mingling of both sarcasm and curiosity in my voice.

'Not that I know of; maybe she could have, though, if your friends had been so gracious as to let her live.'

'Let her live to become another angel who can kill scores of us with their waterfalls of fire?'

'What if she'd have fought for _us_ : have you thought of _that_?'

No; I hadn't.

'Then – if we _knew_ the angel children _would_ fight for us, it could turn the tide.'

'And yet it won't; because I've seen it – the time of angels.'

'Then we may as well kill them all just to be on the safe side, don't you think?'

'I don't think we're supposed to kill them; that's what your man said, anyway.'

'Why would he say _that_?' I demand angrily. 'He must have seen all his legion fall to the angels! How could he turn against us in this way?'

'He said he had no choice; he'd knew, he said, that we were hiding an angel child–'

'He _knew_? Had he seen the wings?'

She shakes her head.

'No; it would have been impossible for him to see Keris's wings – we were frightened as we saw him approaching. We saw he was a soldier; we knew they were under orders to kill any angel children.'

'Then how would he know?'

'He knew; he said he'd been sent to protect us.'

' _Sent_ to protect you?'

All this just gets crazier by the minute.

'Yes, I know; it was hardly protection, was it? Allowing us to be captured, Keris to be murdered; but there were too many of them for him, I realise that now. At first, I was angry with him, with myself for trusting him. He simply said, "It's meant to be" – and then I realised that yes, he was right, of course.'

' _Who_ sent him?' I ask sternly.

'The roebuck,' she answers. 'He said the roebuck had sent him.'

*

# Chapter 5

When I ask what she means, the woman admits she has no idea what Bjorn meant by saying the roebuck sent him.

I've heard of animals who can converse with certain people, but I fail to see why Bjorn should be taking instructions from a tiny, docile deer.

'So you're _not_ Heliq?' she asks a little doubtfully.

'Yes, I _am_ Heliq.'

'He said that if I found you, if he was killed, then I had to give you a message.'

'A _message_?' I snort dismissively. 'He's already given it to me!'

'So you _do_ know about the roebuck?'

Once again, she sounds unsure, a touch confused.

'Of course not!' I snap back. 'Wasn't that obvious to you? Why would I ask what he meant by the roebuck if I already knew the answer?'

'He said you would know what it meant when the time was right.'

'That was the message? That I'd somehow understand what it all meant at some point in the future?'

She shakes her head.

'No; the message was that the roebuck hides the secret.'

I pause, trying to make sense of all these weird, apparently meaningless 'messages' Bjorn's passing on to me. I mean, the way I've heard it, some strange beliefs hold that this incredibly small deer is this hangover from this incredibly ancient parent so many others are descended from; but why would that be called a secret?

Why would Bjorn suddenly start believing in such complete nonsense?

'That was it?' I ask the woman hopefully. 'Nothing more?'

She shakes her head again.

I ask her if she knows how Bjorn had survived the battle in which the rest of his legion had died, wondering if he'd at least explained _that_ to her.

He hadn't.

She didn't even know that he'd been in a battle. He'd never mentioned it.

Perhaps he never had been in the battle.

Perhaps _that's_ how he survived it.

It would have been better for us all if he'd died, I think.

Then it would have been his spirit who came to me delivering any messages I needed to–

_Wait_!

'Your girl; your Keris,' I say, trying for perhaps the first time to grant my tone a suitable tenderness, 'when she...I mean, did you see her _spirit_?'

The woman briefly pouts as she considers this.

Once more she shakes her head.

'No; there wasn't any spirit I can remember seeing.' Strangely, she doesn't seem upset by this. 'I don't know why; perhaps angels are _already_ of the sprit, yes?'

'From what we've heard of our battle with the angels, no one's seen their spirits rise up from the battlefield,' I inform her morosely. 'They're demonic, obviously; only demons lack souls.'

I'm not being fair on this poor woman.

It's not her child, or her anguish over her death, that I'm feeling so miserable about.

It's just that, when I'd executed Bjorn, I'd been so involved in the horror of what I was having to do, so shocked by the lack of blood, that I'd failed to notice what should have immediately struck me as being odd.

There was no spirit.

No spirit rose up from Bjorn's corpse, chastising me for killing him, for my betrayal.

Then he _was_ an angel.

And that means if I _am_ with child, then I'm carrying an angel child.

*

Now I think it would have been better for us all if Bjorn had died before we'd even met.

Why hadn't his parents killed him when he was a babe, as all parents are supposed to do? Had his supposed father been fooled by his unfaithful wife into believing the babe could only be his?

Of course, we weren't at war with the angels at that point. No one would have been sure they even existed in the malevolent form we now know them to take.

But the babe would have had wings, on his wrists, his ankles.

I see now that Bjorn had lied to me when he'd claimed that the scars on his wrists were the result of a test of bravery, of stoicism.

His parents must have hacked off the wings when he was still a babe, holding the no doubt screaming child's hands over a flame to hide the true nature of the scars.

Only in that way could Bjorn have been raised as a normal child.

Only in that way could I have been fooled into making love with him, and risk carrying _his_ demonic child.

I've plenty of time to consider my foolishness as I patrol the edges of the village.

It's supposed to be a part of my continuing punishment for bringing so much shame on our troop. I'm being denied the right to attend the ritual that sends the shaman on his journey.

I regard it as a blessing.

I'm hardly likely to be surprised by a night time attack of the angels.

Yes, they can see in the dark, I've been reliably informed. They can swoop out of the night as silently as any bird, swiftly killing any sentry before he or she is even aware of what is happening.

But it seems that our enemy have realised they cannot surprise us so easily. For anyone on a punishment detail remains on duty even when they are dead.

You have to report an attack, rather than heading home to say your last goodbyes to your loved ones; any refusal to perform your duty resulting in being forever shunned in the afterlife.

When the shaman's journey starts, I can hear the poor woman's screams of agony even out here.

*

# Chapter 6

The shaman will be disappointed by the woman's shrieks.

He believed he had a valuable prize in Bjorn.

I couldn't fail to notice that he had delighted in the way Bjorn remained silent despite the vicious kicks and blows being delivered his way. That's why he had checked that Bjorn still had his tongue; he couldn't believe his good fortune that he'd been granted this gift – as if that itself were an auspicious sign from the gods.

The screams of the living only unnerve the dead, for they fear trickery.

That is why the guide's tongue will be spliced later; to show the dead that the travellers mean them no harm – that they have no intention of speaking any evil charms.

Besides, screaming is a waste of valuable energy that would be better utilised ensuring a longer and deeper journey into the underworld.

The shaman's young apprentice tasked with administering the carefully placed cuts and probing incisions to the chosen guide is supposed to help keep that waste of energy to a minimum by working swiftly and efficiently, moving on from one to another slicing of flesh while the person is still in shock from the earlier wounds.

If this proves too difficult, the subject being too prone to suffering pain, then it is permissible to tighten a cord around the neck to choke off the shrieks if they continue for too long throughout the journey.

The woman's screeching is particularly intense, every bit as unnerving for the living as it is for the dead.

If I give birth to Bjorn's spawn, could a similar fate await me?

Why hadn't Bjorn protected this woman and her child as he had promised he would?

He'd made no attempt to fight off our scouts, or even outrun them, from what I'd heard.

A coward in every way, then.

Perhaps he would, after all, have squealed far louder than even this unfortunate woman.

Perhaps I spared him the shame of that.

But what of my own gutless actions – or, rather, the _lack_ of any honourable act?

I should have killed the poor woman to spare her all this pain.

Then her pain would have been mine.

But at least I could call myself a warrior, as opposed to being this empty, spineless shell I feel I've become.

*

The darkness of the night suddenly, strangely, seems almost touchable, almost suffocating in its abrupt solidity.

And yet it's not really the darkness itself that's changed; it's just no longer being torn apart by the woman's piercing screams.

It's all, now, just a solid, worrying silence.

I've never known of any shaman's journey that has ended so abruptly.

The cry hasn't been choked off; the travellers have had little chance to have journeyed far.

That can only mean that the poor woman's body has given up the ghost.

The shaman will be more furious with me than ever. He'll insist that I'm assigned to the Forlorn Hope.

That's probably for the best; the sooner I die, the less chance there is that I have to acknowledge I'm carrying Bjorn's demonic offspring.

Even so, I almost shiver with relief when the wailing starts up again.

Or is just an awareness of the deeply penetrating chill that's struck me?

This is a different kind of screeching; it's one of fear, not pain.

There _is_ a difference, believe me.

Gibbering, startled – frenzied.

It's a sound of fear that rapidly spreads, remarkably contagious in its effects.

There are more murmurs and shrieks, the villagers who had curiously gathered to watch the shaman setting out on his journey immediately afflicted by the fearful cries, caught up in the rhythms of the clamour, of the waves of dread.

This is no usual journey.

I'm briefly tempted to abandon my post, to check that nothing untoward is happening to those gathered in the village's centre.

But if I do that, I'd have to count myself lucky to last as long as receiving an appointment to the Forlorn Hope.

*

I swear that the anguished cry for help must have been heard miles out into the surrounding wilderness.

A male cry; the shaman. It _has_ to be.

Something has gone _badly_ wrong with his journey into the underworld.

The night-rending shriek comes just as my relief shows up to replace me, the expression on her face one of bewilderment, maybe even fear of the unknown, the unexpected.

With a nod of recognition to her, I leap down from my post on the small hill, rushing down past her as I sprint towards the centre of the village.

I feel at least partially responsible for whatever's happening down in the village, for I was the one who denied the shaman Bjorn, I was the one who effectively condemned the woman to take his place.

But what can have gone wrong?

Is it anything to do with the angel child?

The _demonic_ babe?

Is the _mother_ infected in some way by the birth, perhaps?

And, if so, what awaits me if I'm wrong about all the dates – who _really_ knows, anyway, about angel babe term times? – and _I've_ fallen pregnant?

*

Far from being in a peaceful trance, the shaman appears to be having the worst nightmare anyone has ever experienced.

He's not only shrieking in fright, but also frenziedly thrashing around, going through the motions of attempting to run, or to shield himself from attacks.

The poor woman's tortured body lies alongside him.

Unlike Bjorn's death, here there's plenty of blood.

Blood drenching the slight shift she's wearing.

Blood seeping from countless wounds and incisions.

The shaman's apprentice, a young girl being raised to eventually take his place, appears so distraught she's suffering an uncontrollable panic, tearing at her own hair as she kneels weeping upon the floor.

Thankfully, the woman's husband isn't here to see what his poor wife has been put through. There have been occasions when the woman's partner has been forced to watch, as punishment for believing his wife's protestations that the demonic child was his.

As it is, he can't have failed to have heard her screams, unless he's been specially sedated rather than simply tightly bound to stop him running amok.

The villagers who had gathered to watch the ritual have fled back to their houses, yet I can still hear the odd terrified shriek, the nervous cries of 'Who's there?' out into the darkness, as their imaginations now see devils and the unaccepting dead in every change of shadow.

Yet there are even many amongst my troop whose veneer of bravery has at last deserted them, revealing the petrified child so long veiled beneath.

There are few of them older than seventeen.

Even those with the stoniest of faces finally break, however, when the woman's body begins to quiver, to float up in the air – and then abruptly shatter and dissipate in an earthen-dark cloud, as if it had never been anything more than a charcoaled cocoon.

*

# Chapter 7

I'm not in the village anymore.

The landscape is only vaguely familiar, being one of dark, thickly wooded forest, much as I might have seen surrounding my home village. (Not that I would ever have been foolish enough to walk in to it unaccompanied, of course).

Worse still, it's how the forest looks on a night when there's a bright, low moon; it's devoid of colour, an almost sheer blackness where form is picked out in sparkling silvered edges, granting it all a sense of being somehow inverted, or switched, as if shadows have been flipped on to the wrong side.

We have a poem, a form of a riddle, for such a forest:

darker still

than night

grows silently

its shifting veiled

expanding by degrees

straggly youths

observed by looming ancients

A well-trodden track carves its way through the dense wickerwork of branches and twigs, like a tunnel hacked from a dark cliff face.

Despite the otherwise impassable nature of the forest, people wander freely through it, as if it were all nothing more than the darkness of the night sky.

Some of them warily glance my way, their eyes white and suspicious.

They could be heading out into the fields to farm, or walking to market, a few of the young ones driving before them what I at first believe are none existent geese or pigs until I begin to catch their faint glimmer in the odd slivers of light. The hay they scythe and collect, though, along with the carts they load it into, are either invisible to my eyes, or simply some figment of their imagination.

There are warriors too, many mounted, their horses more substantial than the farm stock, their lances and shields held haphazardly, warily, as if returning from a hard-fought battle.

Like the forest, they lack the brighter colours of the real world, everything muted as if seen in a badly flickering candlelight on a night.

Unlike these freely flowing people, the only route I can take is along the beaten track, and even here I have to duck and weave to avoid the more wayward branches that attempt to harshly scrape at my flesh, as if they recognise it as being something wholly alien that I need to discard to be a part of this landscape.

It briefly seemed a silent landscape to me, until I begin to catch the odd sounds familiar to any village life, but like the colours muted, only this time as if after a deep snowfall.

I've never seen so many dead in one place before. I've never seen _any_ dead animals until now.

But these don't act like the dead I've become used to seeing; the dead who walk along blank faced, their task only to reach home, a loved one. These, on the other hand, go about the tasks they probably fulfilled while alive, as if they've created a whole new existence here.

What of the insects?

Are there wraith equivalents of spiders, flies, moths?

Not that I can see.

But there's one thing I can see perfectly clearly now; Bjorn was a born liar.

*

He'd once fooled me – yes, I see that now, and yet I was foolish enough to trust him at the time – into believing he'd once made a short journey into the underworld.

It wasn't an intentional journey, of course.

A small troop of his legion out on patrol had found themselves in one of the violent disputes that often flare up between the living and the dead; usually over claims by the dead that we're encroaching on land they regard as theirs.

Naturally, battle with a troop of the dead is something to be avoided, at all costs; and yet sometimes, as in this case (and I do know that _this_ part of Bjorn's tale is true!), the living can find themselves being ridden down upon before they're even aware that anything is amiss,

The dead, of course, move silently, even when mounted, and moving in a mass formation.

Even a graze from a weapon of the dead is – well, deadly.

which lance of the dead

that penetrates as if a cold wind

and putrefies flesh with its distasteful breath

is not feared?

And yet, the way Bjorn had it, he'd miraculously survived such a blow, the lance sinking deeply into the flesh of his arm.

Yes, he'd assured me; it feels so incredibly cold, so sickeningly damp – the first touches of death, readying to claim you as one of its own.

And when you are dead, some would have it, you're immediately expected to take the side of your new friends, fighting against the old, ensuring that evermore of the living can join the ranks of the dead.

Bjorn reassured me that he never witnessed this.

Rather, the dead rose from their bodies and blankly headed for home, as they do in the midst of any regular battle.

After _he'd_ been struck, however, he found himself in the world of the dead.

But it wasn't a world like the one I find myself in now that he'd described; the dark forests were there, yes, but they were on the edges of rolling hills and more pleasant areas of woodland.

And the animals, well – in Bjorn's fairytale, they'd talked of course!

Within the thicket, he'd come across a lapwing, one bravely attempting to lead him away from her secreted nest by feigning injury.

the eggs of the hare

a strange thing to see

the deceit of the lapwing

a fertility goddess's shifting of shapes

Knowing of the ways of the lapwing, of course, Bjorn had peered into the thicket.

And there he had seen the nest, with a hare perched comfortably upon the eggs.

'The lapwing _veils_ the secret,' the hare had said – and then before Bjorn could hear anymore, he had found himself back within his own feverishly suffering body.

*

The fever was all Bjorn had suffered from this wound inflicted by the lance of the dead warrior.

Oh, of course, he had a scar there, supposedly where the lance head had so deeply penetrated his arm; and yet, now I think back on it, it was only the most minor of scarring – nothing like as bad as I've seen people wearing after supposedly more trivial injuries.

That was how Bjorn had 'survived' his battle with the dead, he had claimed.

He'd simply been left for dead, but had recovered in his own good time.

_Hah_!

What a _fool_ I'd been to believe his _nonsense_!

What a _fool_ I've been not to see that he was still laughing at me as I'd prepared to take off his lying head!

All this roebuck _hiding_ the secret!

It was all just his sad, malicious joke, wasn't it?

Reminding me how he'd fooled me into believing his tale of the lapwing and this talking hare.

Even now, though, I _want_ to believe him; if only so I can reassure myself I wasn't such a _complete_ fool, after all!

I look towards these animals being herded everywhere about me, hoping I can pick up even the faintest sounds that could be interpreted as chatter, as conversation – but of course, there are no such sounds.

There's just the muted clacking of geese, the oinks of pigs, the odd bark of an excited dog.

As I glance quickly about me, once again attempting to take in as many details as I can of this strange world, I see someone I vaguely recognise.

The woman; the woman I've just seen die, whose body disintegrated into nothing but a cloud of dust.

She doesn't _look_ like the woman, of course; I just somehow _know_ it's her.

She's with someone; a young girl she's tightly, warmly embracing.

A young girl with wings on her wrists.

*

# Chapter 8

Even as the mother and her child happily embrace each other, the girl is growing, maturing.

The most glorious of swan-white wings are bourgeoning from her back. They unfold, spreading, as a butterfly unfolds its wings when newly emerged from its chrysalis.

The wings tremble, fluttering in the wind as the feathers dry, taking on as they do a sense of being so many white flames.

Then, with an effortless flap of those great wings, and still holding her mother tightly about the waist, the angel begins to rise up from the ground, passing through the thicket of dark trees as if they are nothing more than a black cloud.

As they rise, some of the people working around them at last seem to have been made aware of their presence. They stare at the gracefully rising couple, the wings fluttering about them now seemingly more numerous than I had at first realised. The people gawp at the rising of the angelic couple as one might gawp at the abrupt arrival of a popular god.

And yet their eyes, it seems to me, are full not of just awe but also envy, resentment, bitterness. Some of them even rush forward, reaching up to grab at the ankles of the departing pair; and whether that's to drag them back down to earth, or in the hope of rising up with them, I can't be sure.

The woman and her angelic child soar silently up through the night, eventually becoming little more than the sparkling glitter of a falling star in reverse.

And yet there are no glimmering stars immediately around them, no shimmering stars hanging high above them even.

For their intended destination is a darkly forbidding planet, one so huge and so close to us that it completely dominates the night sky.

*

Why has no one ever seen an angel's sprit before?

Why have we never heard any reports of them rising up from the bodies of their dead on the battlefield?

Did the shaman witness this?

Where _is_ the shaman? Has he already set off back to our world? Has he already awoken from his trance?

Questions, questions, questions!

Wasn't the whole point of visiting this underworld to seek answers?

( _Another_ question!)

The farther I head down the path, the more I'm sure I can hear a terrified screaming. No one around me is reacting to it in any way however, as if this is all perfectly normal to them.

It reminds me of the shaman's petrified shrieks, yet I can soon also hear the threatening growls of a fierce dog. I break into the nearest I can manage to a run, the constant ducking to avoid straggling branches slowing me down.

No one pays either my frantic, crashing run through the trees or the shaman's piecing shrieks any attention at all, as if all the commotion we're responsible for is every bit as muted as their own sounds of work and everyday life are to me.

The shaman, when I last come across him deep in the forest, is shaking with fear, making vain attempts to either scramble off into or even clamber up the thick and quite obviously impenetrable undergrowth lying to one side of the track. A towering hound, its snarling maw and glowering eyes a flaming blood red, is growling at him as if readying itself to make a sudden, vicious attack; and yet it makes no move towards him at all, apparently satisfied that the man is so terrified he's trying to flee.

Why isn't the shaman running this way, down the path? Does he fear that the dog would simply chase him, run him down?

What was it that Bjorn had said to me just before he died?

Don't fear the Hellhound?

Even so, I cautiously slow my approach towards both the shaman and the dog, breathing a sigh of relief when the snarling beast at last quietens and, with a happily lolling tongue, lies down upon the floor as if favourably ensconced before his master's hearth.

The shaman's frenzied scrabbling at the unmovable undergrowth continues, however, no more aware of my presence than he is that the hound is no longer threatening him.

As I step alongside him, he actually appears even more startled than ever.

'You!' he snaps.

He glances over my shoulder, where the path stretches out behind me; but he stares at it in bewilderment as if he can't see it, as if all he sees is yet more darkly impenetrable thicket.

He even tentatively reaches out into what I see as empty space, only to instantly withdraw his hand with a pained scowl, the face of a man whose flesh has been deeply pierced by thick thorns.

More remarkably still, his skin is bleeding, although if that's from some earlier injury or not, I can't be sure.

'How did you get here?' he demands – then jerks in terror, looking back towards the hound as if he's abruptly remembered that he was attempting to flee it.

Although relieved to see that the hound is now peacefully laid out upon the ground, the shaman nevertheless glares at me with eyes wide with what could only be suspicious dread.

'Why's the dog stopped attacking me? Is he yours?'

Questions, questions, questions!

Did he really come all this way out here to seek answers to _those_ questions?

'Of course he isn't _mine_!' I retort angrily, knowing full well he's just about proclaiming that I'm a witch. 'Would I be trying to help you if I was a...I can _leave_ you here, if you don't trust me!'

Then it dawns on me; how can I help him, when I don't even know the way out of this forest myself? So far, the track I've been following seems to have only led me deeper into the ever-thickening woodland.

'Help _me_?'

The shaman sneers as if the suggestion is ludicrous.

I'm tempted to confess that I really have no idea how we can exit this forest when I notice that the dog has risen to his feet and, where he stands by the edge of the track, looking back at me as if waiting for me to join him, a new opening has appeared in the dense thicket.

This _is_ an odd hound, I realise: he has a strange solidity to him, such that he could be from our own world, rather than this one – and yet it would mean, also, that he has somehow managed to drag his bodily form into this underworld, something neither I nor the shaman have obviously managed.

Don't fear the Hellhound.

Follow him.

I'm tempted to leave the shaman here.

If we follow this new track, how much more likely will it be that he accuses me of being in league with the hound?

I decide that I'll leave it up the shaman if he wants to follow me or not.

I step towards the dog, following him into the undergrowth as it gradually opens before him.

The shaman follows on behind.

Grumbling resentfully.

*

# Chapter 9

The shaman glowers at me, daring me to contradict him as he relates his experiences in the underworld: fighting off demons, besting devious imps, carving his own way back to our world through his own remarkable navigational skills.

He's made no mention of me, or the hound.

Neither has he said anything about either his guide or any angel, apart from 'explaining' that the woman had panicked and run off into the ever-grasping hands of the dead before he'd had a chance to stop or help her.

From that point on, according to him, he had been lost, relying only on his previous visits to the underworld to serve as a guide.

'And what _message_ did you receive while there?' our commanding officer asks him, weary of the shaman's boasting.

Although making no attempt to hide his irritation at being interrupted by our commanding officer's interruption, the shaman nevertheless changes his tone, slipping easily from regaling everyone with his heroics to a more serious manner of disclosing matters of great portent.

'It's the end of days,' he says, lowering a heavily furrowed brow over already narrowed eyes. 'I fear there will only be ever more angels for us to fight!'

Even our officers can't help but gasp in dismay at this news.

'How do you _know_ this? _Who_ told you? Is it _reliable_ information?'

The questions now pour from our commanding officer. She's worried that the shaman's information can only sap an already dangerously low morale.

'I visited the _underworld_!' the shaman snarls, effectively dismissing the officer's anxieties as naive stupidities. 'This isn't some gossip from some fishwife!'

Our commanding officer nods, her way of saying that she grants this is true.

'But even those in the underworld can lie, or be wrong,' she points out.

The shaman's laughter is mocking, confident.

' _This_ cannot lie,' he declares assuredly, effortlessly rising up from his cross-legged stance upon the ground.

He points up into the almost entirely black sky.

He points up towards a huge, darkly forbidding planet, dominating the night.

*

The planet, thankfully, is nowhere near as huge – or, rather, nowhere near as close to earth – as the one I'd seen while visiting the underworld.

Yet judged by the standards of the other planets we can see in our skies, it's closer in size to that of a full moon rather than any other.

How could we have missed it?

Because it is so dark; because it appears simply as a black disc, a hole, almost, in the night sky – a perfectly formed circle where no stars playfully wink at us.

'What _is_ it, Shaman?' our commanding officer demands. 'No such planet _exists_ in our skies!'

The shaman scornfully chuckles once more.

'And yet, there it is; plain for all to see!' he says jeeringly. 'It will draw closer, bringing with it more angels, who'll be able to fly to earth once more.'

'Once more? Many have already flown here; why does it need to draw closer?'

'Because the ones we fight now came here long ago; thousands of years ago, when the dark planet visited us last time.'

'The planet has been here before? But...but surely it would affect our planet, surely–'

'It will, it will: just as, so the ancients tell us, it caused floods, tremors, terrible storms, and brought into being tidal waves and new volcanoes that wracked the earth. Despite it's size in the sky, it is still far away.'

'How long have we got, Shaman; before the planet is so close that the angels can descend in even greater force upon us?'

The shaman shakes his head sadly.

'I didn't have _time_ to learn that.'

He whirls around on his feet, now pointing accusingly at me.

'Because _she_ denied me my _true_ guide!'

As far as everyone here is concerned, I fainted when the woman's body disintegrated before us.

For people to believe this of me, _that_ would be humiliation enough; but to be accused of denying everyone important information on the positions and capabilities of the enemy is tantamount to treachery.

A growl – a strangely familiar growl – comes out of the thickly surrounding darkness.

And I see the blazing red eyes of the Hellhound languidly draw closer towards our campfire.

*

The drooling maw of the approaching hound is every bit as blood red as the flaming eyes.

Yet, thankfully, it's all an effect of our campfire, its flames reflected in the glistening of the eyes, the slavering of the lolling tongue.

It's nothing more than the mangy hound I'd seen loping alongside the farmer's wagon as they'd drawn into the village earlier.

And yet – there _are_ remarkable similarities between the two towering dogs.

Similarities the shaman takes more seriously – maybe even more _personally_ – than I do.

'Catch that hound!' he shrieks, no longer pointing at me, his ire reserved now only for the dog. 'Catch it, kill it – it's a _devil_ dog!'

I don't believe that anyone else amongst us actually believes it's a Hellhound; if they did, then they were being either spectacularly brave or amazingly stupid to rush off into the darkness after the dog. They were neither wearing battle armour nor armed with anything more than their knives or any spear they picked up from any tented stack they happened to be passing.

I thought I should look like I was also making the effort to hunt down the dog, even though my reasons for charging into the night were wholly different, seeking only to preserve the hound's life should it be in any way threatened.

How I'd do that, of course, I hadn't yet considered.

Would I really risk my own life, or even contemplate taking the life of a fellow solider, simply to save this dog?

Probably not, if it came down to making such a choice.

And yet I felt I owed this dog my help, if it was indeed the one that had saved me by leading me out of the underworld.

Besides, I might _need_ him alive if I hope to make sense of what was possibly the oddest thing of all about my journey into the underworld – an event that ironically took place just as we were _leaving_ , meaning I couldn't turn back to check that I'd heard correctly.

It was the _hound_ – perhaps _this_ hound – who seemed to speak to me in a growling voice as I slipped back into my body.

'The dog _guards_ the secret,' it had said.

*

# Chapter 10

As I'd feared, I've been appointed to the Forlorn Hope.

We set off a little earlier than everyone else, meaning an early rising, a swift, hurried breakfast, before the sun has even truly risen.

The captain who had allowed me to spare Bjorn a tortured end is leading us, for everyone in this doomed party is guilty of some misdemeanour, whether serious or paltry.

It doesn't really matter. It just means we get to die a little sooner than everyone else in our troop.

The role of the Forlorn Hope is to die.

For when we die, we can return to our troop and warn them of the numbers they face.

Only in this way might we hope to make recommence for our misconduct.

Maybe I'll soon be journeying in the underworld once more; and if that is the case, I'm glad my friendly Hellhound is still with me, rather than falling to someone's blade last night.

Every now and again, I've caught a glimpse of him, keeping pace with our small column. He's keeping his distance, possibly so as not to alarm any amongst us who recall the way the dog seemed to predict his pursuers' every move, using the night as his veil as effectively as any well trained warrior.

We should have had him; there were enough of us, some even taking his pursuit as an opportunity to turn it into a hunt, mounting their horses, riding around with blazing firebrands, lowered lances.

The dog evaded us all, slipping past even the guards on the edges of the village without being seen, as if it were all a game for him.

Now he displays that same remarkable level of almost human intelligence, taking the opportunities afforded by any distractions we face – the startling abrupt rise of a flock of birds, the need to take care of our mounts' steps when passing across rocky ground or fords – to slink across the more open spaces and seek the shrouding grasses and bushes once more.

As the sun rises, we face more distractions, ones we should by rights be ignoring; yet as we're soon about to die, surely we have the right to observe the construction of those great beasts and giants we hope will one day be able to enthral future generations with tales of the sacrifices we made.

And if there are no future generations? Then let these vast figures being carved into our landscape serve as testament to the achievements and aspirations to my people, who once lived – and fought and died – here.

they rise when they wish

their will only their own to command

no king to obey

no lord to honour

the stars alone

bring them low

The angels, for some reason, allow the bone collectors and carvers to go about their business unmolested: perhaps they relish the idea that our own messengers will one day tell of their victories over us.

The hill we're passing is being graced with a huge hare, the carvers hacking down towards the chalk levels, the collectors arriving with wagons stacked to the brim with the bones of the fallen they've gathered from the battlefields. Others can be seen sorting out these bones into large piles: those that can be used whole, to help form the lines of the chalk figures, those that will be ground down, to mix in with the chalk itself.

Other colossal figures stare down at us from the hills, their eyes doubtlessly following us, admiring our straggly column and, hopefully, working out how to make us sound more impressive than we actually are when they're finally called upon to relate the things they have witnessed

There's a rising swan, a charging bull, a curiously observant wren. A giant ploughs his field, a warrior threateningly raises his shield and spear.

It is from behind these very hills, of course, that we might glimpse these titans and creatures either rising up into the night sky, or descending from amongst those stars to briefly make home here on earth.

You can see any manner of beast in the stars, I reckon, depending upon which star you agree to make your starting point, which your end.

Even so, I can make out nothing that I could call a roebuck.

And so it is not in the stars that I will find my answer to this secret being hidden from me.

*

It doesn't take us long to reach our very first battlefield, one still strewn with our dead. Their bodies rot, still encased in armour that keeps many of them in lifelike positions; kneeling, as if for prayer, or seemingly clambering over those who fell before them.

We no longer have the numbers nor the energy to bury our dead. On this field alone, the corpses strewn out around us stretch off in all directions, like some fallen, diseased crop.

There are no angelic bodies here, of course.

They are always, ultimately, the victors.

I've heard that, initially, they used to take away our dead too. But, fearful of how they intended to utilise our corpses, any legions nearby would hurriedly throw themselves into fresh – magnificent yet always hopeless – attacks until the angels realised they were taking losses themselves for what must have been little benefit.

And so our bodies are left as meals for the black clouds of carrion that flock so thickly about us they are hardly disturbed by our intrusion. Here and there wild dogs also risk feasting on the dead, but many are chased away by massed, bitterly cawing ravens, their beaks reddened by slivers of flesh they refuse to let go of.

of shredded shadow

or flames of night

and all so that

the dead

may take wing

We could make a show of chasing away the crows, but what would be the point? They would settle once again as soon as we had left.

A standard rises up from amongst a pile of the dead, its banner tattered, its paintwork heavily scarred.

The Fifth Legion: only recently reformed from a previous massacre at the hands of the merciless angels.

Well now they have another battlefield honour to add to any new standard. There is no disgrace in losing to the angels as long as you're prepared to fight to the last trooper.

Our horses make their way carefully through the chaotically strewn bodies, perhaps retaining more respect for the dead than we ourselves can manage these days. It is simply wearying for us to see these areas of mass yet obviously useless sacrifice.

The same fate awaits us.

We keep our heads down, not wishing to see what we will soon become, not wishing to admit to ourselves that we will soon be nothing more than fodder for the wild creatures to engorge themselves upon.

Is this what our mothers raised us to be?

It's only because I raise my head to search out my escorting hound that I realise we're being shadowed by another column of troops.

They've approached silently, with no pounding of hooves, no clank of harness or armour, no stirring of dust or crows.

It's a patrol of the dead.

*

# Chapter 11

The abrupt change in my demeanour – I instinctively sit up straighter in my saddle – alerts the rest of my troop to the nearby presence of the dead.

Unlike us, the dead display no need to stare at us curiously. Their expressions are blank, sternly facing ahead.

The pennants on their lances don't ripple in the wind.

They make no moves to either threaten or attack us, obviously satisfied with merely observing our own movements and intentions. Even so, our captain calls up the nearest trooper, sending her galloping back to warn the rest of our squadron following on far behind us.

The dead are on the march once again; and that's a far worse threat to us than any number of angels.

*

The dead have agreed to talk to our commanding officer.

Only she and the shaman are allowed to approach the dead; then again, no one else wishes to join them, and would only do so if commanded to.

In our world, you can feel the cold and dampness emanating from the dead, I'm told. Apparently, they're equally uncomfortable with the heat and stench that rises off from our bodies: they keep their intrusions into our world to the minimum.

Certainly, however, nether our commanding officer nor the shaman show any signs of being either cold of discomfited by the presence of these _deathly_ silent troops.

She, the shaman and a small band of troopers had ridden hard to join us, leaving orders that the rest of the squadron had to also catch up with the Forlorn Hope as soon as possible, without unnecessarily tiring their mounts.

We've halted while the parlaying takes place, but we don't expect the others to meet up with us until evening at the earliest.

When our commanding officer returns from her brief conversation with the dead, she orders us all to form up again, to set off at an easy trot that will allow the greater part of our column to meet up with us quite soon.

'They're only here to observe,' she reassures us, offering no more information.

Observe us for what reason?

To see how many more of us will soon be joining their ranks?

*

The watchful dead are still with us as we all ride down into the valley where we expect the angels to be waiting for us.

This is as far as any column as reached before being blocked by angelic forces.

The valley floor is littered with rusty armour, mangled skeletons.

The dead seem to be of a like mind to us, at least when it comes to believing that this is where battle will be joined. Their patrol wheels off from what had been a perfectly parallel course to ours up until now. They begin to head for a high rising of the surrounding hills rather than continuing their descent into the valley.

This will give them the perfect vantage point to see our ineptness when facing the angelic columns.

Is that why they're here, then? To see what ridiculously easy meat we will make for them?

Or is it the angelic host whom they are really here to see?

If they feared our encroachment across their borders, what must they make of the likelihood that the far more powerful angels might also begin to lay claim to their lands?

Abruptly, the regimental horns blare out their instructions, their calls to be brave, to prepare to make the most supreme sacrifice.

We begin to fan out into wider lines of twenty abreast, the widest we can mange within the confines of the clearer areas of the track remaining unbroken by shrubs or boulders.

I haven't seen any signs of the angels as yet. But obviously _someone_ has.

As the horns change their notes, their rhythms, we pick up speed, preparing our mounts for a full-blown charge.

The sun's dipping behind the enveloping hills, leaving a liquid dark pool in the valley's base, one broken by white islands of bones, the remains of those who'd fought to the last around shattered standards.

The horns wail again, urging us to lower our lances, to break into the charge.

We howl like wolves. We holler and bravely cry out.

'To death and glory!'

*

# Chapter 12

Suddenly, all around me, friends are falling.

Their mounts pitch forward, crumpling to the ground, horse and rider chaotically tumbling across the ground, falling prey to the hooves of those coming behind them.

Sometimes, the horse rides on, unaffected, the rider alone whipped back out of her seat, as if struck by invisible lances.

And still I haven't seen an angel.

There are just spurts of flame coming at us out of the darkness. Flame that rips through armour as if it were nothing but the finest cotton sheeting.

We continue our charge, our frenzied screaming that's supposed to instil fear into our enemies.

More troops whirl in the air, spill to the ground.

There are massive gaps in our front ranks. There are even empty spaces in those lines far behind the leaders.

The efforts taken to fill these spaces seem hopeless, as more and more of us brutally crash to the earth.

We're rushing now through the darkness of the valley bottom. The dead from previous battles are being crushed beneath our hooves or, worse, their shattered limbs are being torn from their bodies, whirling up into the air everywhere about us.

Just ahead of me there are cries, the frightened whinnying of horses. The riders and their mounts are being whipped back towards me, as if they've ridden into the springy, spreading branches of a vast, invisible oak.

There's an abrupt burst of incredible heat, the whoosh of hundreds of arrows all being loosened at once; and the darkness before me flares in blinding, orange light as an angel rises up into the air on wings of fire.

*

# Chapter 13

In the darkness alongside me, there's a vicious snarling.

The darkness swirls, moves, leaping up high to strike hard against the side of my mount's neck, the growling more terrifying than ever.

Neighing in fright, shying away from this brutal attack, my horse stumbles, collapsing under the weight of this massive, dark shape.

As my horse falls off to one side, I whip my feet out of the stirrups, not wishing to be entrapped under its own considerable weight when it strikes the ground. I tumble from the saddle, rolling across the ground, across corpses still rotting, corpses little more than skeletons.

From the dark sky above me, the angel rains down his fire, his lance spitting out flames that fly over my head to bring down the riders who had been following on after me.

In the light of those flames, I can at last make out my attacker.

It's the dog; the Hellhound.

It seems he's on the side of the angels after all.

*

My horse isn't seriously injured by the dog's attack; she rises, stumbling only a little in her nervousness to get away. I've tumbled too far away to chase after her, while any cry to her I make wouldn't be enough to stop her bolting; it might even alarm the dog enough for him to attack me.

As it is, he seems content with eyeing me warily as he keeps his distance and quietly slips onto his belly.

Like him, I stay close to the ground, realising that to reveal myself would be tantamount to suicide while the angel throws out his seemingly endless fan of flames.

Those who had gone on ahead of me are dead.

Those who were behind me, even those who were riding alongside me, are now all dead.

I survived only because my horse crumpled to the ground, pitching me headlong into the darkness, into the perfect camouflage of dead bodies.

I survived only because the Hellhound _made_ my horse crumple to the ground.

The dog _hadn't_ attacked me; he'd made sure I'd be _spared_.

Reassured that the hound won't attack me after all, I quickly take in what's happening around me.

The angel is no longer hovering above me, his wings of flame having dulled a little. He's dropped to the ground a little farther on from me, yet he's still letting loose with his arrows of fire, bringing down more and more of my comrades and their mounts.

Farther over to my right, another angel has taken to the air, his skin apparently impervious to the arrows and even the spears being sent flying his way. His own lance spews out the fire that takes down our armoured cavalry as easily as a scythe cuts through corn.

Somewhere in between, a solid punch of hard-riding troops have managed to draw close to the angel who still remains grounded. With a lowering of his lance, he cuts through the massed horseflesh as effortlessly as a knife slices through cream, both riders and mounts propelled backwards in a chaotic sprawl of flailing limbs and bloody chunks.

One trooper draws close enough to attempt a plunging of her lance into his shoulder, only for a fierce blow from the spouting flames to splatter her as surely as if she were made of nothing but crimson water. The lance tip shatters without penetrating the angel's skin.

Despite the warrior's failed attack, it's distracted the angel enough to allow the last of these troopers to make her own attempt at bringing him down, aiming her lance towards his waist. The angel whirls, aware of the danger, letting go with another burst of flames that rips through the poor girl's flesh.

But her lance sinks home, the angel's body apparently eagerly swallowing the shaft, the force of the dying horse's charge lifting him clear of the ground without any need for his wings of fire.

The first angel I'd seen rushes forward, perhaps with the intention of helping his friend. Thinking the darkness cloaks me, I draw my sword and spring up towards him, hoping to take him by surprise.

He seems to see me as clearly as if it's day, the glare of his immense, globular eyes a green as vibrant as any woodland pool.

He swings around to bring his fire down upon me, but once again, the darkness flows alongside me – and it's the angel who goes down, crumpling under the unexpected and unbearable weight of the leaping hound.

It seems unfair to hack at a man when he's already been brought low.

But this is an angel, whom I've seen bring down friend after friend as if they were nothing but geese being slaughtered in the markets.

Before he has a chance to recover, I dart towards him, curving my sword down towards his stomach with all the force I can muster; and with a clang, the blade springs back, shattering into glistening moon-like slivers.

I quickly throw myself aside in a roll, perhaps erroneously hoping the darkness can veil me _this_ time.

It _was_ a vain hope.

Even as I flow from my roll into a rise and turn, searching for a handy weapon, I see that he's rising and turning too, preparing to aim his lance at me.

Once again, it's the Hellhound who saves me, throwing himself so brutally against the rising figure that the angel's head is sent spinning up into the air.

The angel's head screams anxiously, in multiple voices, its inside revealed as it drops towards and rolls across the ground, the brain one of countless miniature lanterns, rainbow coloured and flashing erratically.

The angel's decapitated body had collapsed to the ground as the hound brought it down, but now it's rising again, a smaller head having taken the place of the original one.

No, of course; it was a _helmet_ the angel had lost, _not_ a head!

But the angel no longer has his green, globular eyes. It seems to me that he can no longer see in the dark. He's suddenly confused, obviously unsighted.

Yet _I_ see what _I_ need.

I pick up a nearby spear.

I hurl it hard and true towards the angel's exposed head.

Thankfully, the spear sinks through an angel's unhelmeted head as readily as it would any man's.

*

# Chapter 14

The angel dies as swiftly as any man.

Only...there's no spirit that rises up from him.

Just as I'd heard in all the tales, there's no rising of the dead, no wraiths wishing to head home to say their last goodbyes to their loved ones.

The angel pinioned earlier with the lance is still writhing in agony, clutching at the deeply embedded shaft as if he's still hoping he might be able to withdraw it, bringing his agony to an end.

All around me, it seems that – for once – we've been victorious.

The field is a mass of warriors, apparently eager to form back once more into regimental lines.

Their faces expressionless, shocked by their experiences, they rise to their feet, walking back the way we came without a word, without a clink of mail or weapons.

As silently as the dead.

No, we haven't been victorious; this _is_ the dead rising.

Everywhere around me, they rise up from their now useless, empty shells. If there's anybody I know still alive, I can't see them.

The whole battlefield is quiet now. There's no sign of the angel I'd seen hovering earlier. Perhaps he's flown off; perhaps he was brought down.

Is that it?

_Three_ angels?

I thought we were fighting a whole _army_!

Surely there were more, surely we killed more than _three_ of them!

Surely we can't have sacrificed a whole regiment to bring down less than a handful of angels!

The angel pinioned by the lance has gone quiet, still; he's dead too now.

And yet, like the angel I'd killed, there's no spirit rising up from his corpse.

As my friends depart – those still on duty fated to report yet another massacre of our troops – I'm left alone on the battlefield.

Up on the hills, the watching column of the dead turn and unhurriedly file away.

*

The hound growls.

So, I'm not _really_ alone after all.

He's waiting for me.

He wants us to leave the battlefield. He's facing off towards a range of hills, one foreleg raised, impatient to step forward; he glances back at me, his eyes wide and questioning.

What am I waiting for?

I want to see more of these angels, of course.

Before I can take a closer look at their dead, however, a storm-like roar rolls over the hills on the opposite side of the valley. The sun has rapidly set behind those hills, so the darkness that had flooded the valley floor has now surged much higher, veiling the storm's effects.

The hound barks urgently at me, the lowering of his head, the narrowing of his eyes, telling me we need to leave – quickly.

Now!

I hesitate, wondering if it's all just an animal's overreaction to a perfectly natural squall. Yet the onrush of wind is hurtling directly towards us, weirdly focused in its intent rather than more naturally spreading out across the whole valley.

It seems to whirl and pound at the darkness itself.

It's _darker_ than the sky.

It's huge, something with immense outspread wings, with a body as sharp and fluid as a shark's.

It's as if one of the vast chalk giants has come to life and risen up into the night sky.

It's a colossal raven; the _King_ of the Ravens.

*

The hound lopes off, and I sprint after him.

I can feel, now, the downdraft from the beating of those immense wings.

The dust rises up around us, choking in its thickness. Even the materials of old uniforms and banners flap wildly, as if brought to life once more.

The dog doesn't panic. He just moves quicker, now that he knows I'm following on behind him.

He's heading out into the darkness lying beyond the edges of the battlefield.

Behind us, there's a creaking of joints as the raven lands amongst the more recent dead. The dog lithely spins around as he throws himself to the ground, lying alongside the rotting corpses of those who fought here so long ago. I join him, trusting in his instincts.

The giant raven appears to have folded it wings down by its sides, to be lying as flat as possible upon its belly, such that its great beak also rest upon the ground.

With another creaking of pained joints, the upper part of the beak rises up, revealing a glowing, bloody gullet.

Then, as it might spew out worms to its young, the King of the Ravens disgorges an angel.

*

# Chapter 15

The angel somewhat nonchalantly steps out from the yawning beak.

He's followed by another angel, both of them walking out onto the dark battlefield as if they can see as clearly as any cat.

They make a quick check of the area, making sure – it seems to me – that no one's left to endanger them in any way. One of the angels raises an arm, a signal for both him and the other angel to raise the strange, globular eyeguards on their helmets.

I blink in surprise as the whole area around them is suddenly lit up as if a small star has plummeted to earth. The light is incredible, as if generated by thousands of candles reflected over and over again by polished metal reflectors.

Alongside me, the dog rises quietly to his feet. He realises, obviously, that the angels won't be able to see out into the darkness now they have bathed themselves in such bright light.

He silently slopes off; and I follow him, as he seems to know the way.

Although, where he knows the way _to_ , I'm not so sure.

*

'The dog guards the secret.'

Isn't that what he himself had told me?

If so – if it was indeed the dog who had spoken to me – he's lost any capability he had of speaking while journeying in the land of the dead.

As soon as we're clear of the angels, we can pick up speed, as I no longer have to crouch, no longer have to take care that I'm not making any sudden noise that might startle our enemies.

The hound leads me higher up into the hills, although keeping for the moment to the hollows weaving between the rises and peaks simply because they make for easier traveling.

He pauses at one point, his nose held high in the air; then he quickly slinks over towards a small outcrop of rocks, a glance over his shoulder letting me know he wants me to do the same. We lie here, waiting for a visual of whatever it was he'd scented on the night air.

A broken moon has risen and, briefly unveiled by the scudding clouds, its silvery light brings a vibrant glow to the white lines of the gigantic figures scattered across the landscape.

It seems to me that its eerie light, fragmented on shifts in the misty air, creates what could be a ghostly copse (much like frost creates its shattered patterns on cold blades) embedded on a small section of the hills.

And a darkness moves within this wraithlike copse, flowing towards its edges.

Then the shadows break clear, swiftly moving and picked out against those glittering lines. Staring more intently at these flurries of black, I begin to make out that they're giant hounds.

I catch the air of the Master of the Wild Hunt, singing the souls of the dead to their rest in the Summerlands of the Otherworld.

The hound alongside me glances up, his expression bashful, his eyes possibly full of regret for making me think he was one of these hounds.

Is it possible to read that much into a dog's eyes, his expression?

Possibly not; but then again, this is no normal hound.

And yet: _these_ are the real Hellhounds, out hunting any wayward souls foolish enough to wander too far from the battlefield.

Which makes _my_ hound – what?'

*

# Chapter 16

The dog patiently waits until he's sure the hounds have all passed safely by; and then we continue on our journey.

After a while, as the sun at last begins to rise once more, it seems to me that we're heading to a particular figure, one that I suspect is far more ancient than any of the more numerous ones more recently hacked out of the land.

It's a giant, the stag-headed Cernnunos, boasting magnificent antlers any male trooper would be bound to envy, while at his feet the Wise Salmon and the Five Rivers spring from the Great Cauldron.

down in the dark

below where grass remains moist

he lies underfoot

sleeping

waiting

for he is our roots

His mouth gapes slightly. A dark, horizontal cleft so low and narrow we can enter only by getting down onto our bellies and scrambling through.

I'm tempted to put aside my robe, perhaps a part of my armour, or even my sword, worried that they might catch on something and entrap me in the confines of the giant's mouth: but naturally I'd prefer to keep them with me.

Our own bodies block out a great deal of the light as we crawl into what increasingly feels to be a bigger, more spacious area. And so it's only when we both stand clear of the light entering by the entrance hole that I can make out that we're in a large cave.

But it's not an _empty_ cave.

An angel stands there, quite obviously waiting for and expecting me.

*

# Chapter 17

The song that's supposed to comfort the souls of the dead suddenly no longer seems so melodious.

The voice is even a little choked.

I'm standing on an abruptly moist, even moving floor, both it and the cave walls surrounding me now a bright blood red.

Then suddenly, I'm no longer standing; I'm being effortlessly lifted up off the floor and hoisted back out of the cave, as something huge and cold grabs me by the back of my chainmail.

I'm not pulled from the cave, however, but from a gaping mouth.

The mouth of the giant Cernnunos.

*

I hang helplessly from the tips of the giant's huge fingers until, with a bemused grin, much as one might grant a troublesome insect, he gently lets me down onto the outstretched palm of his other hand.

His antlers branch ever upwards, like some great pulsating tree reaching up to touch the circling sun, moon and stars.

The forests and even the seas, teaming with frenzied, never stilled life, spin around his massive trunk.

Under his great weight, his feet sink into the moist earth, like roots reaching into otherworlds.

'Are you...are _you_ the secret?' I nervously ask him.

He smiles, his mouth almost forming into a hurt pout.

'The _secret_? Now why would we have secrets between us?'

'Because...there are _some_ things that it is best man remains unaware of?'

He frowns as if sagely thinking about this, then nods in agreement.

'Now that _is_ a secret! Thankfully, man remains unaware of so many, many things, precisely because he flatters himself he knows so much.'

'I was told a roebuck hides a secret,' I persist.

'A roebuck indeed?'

He says it as if this is something he'd never considered before.

'Now,' he continues, 'the roebuck is indeed an interesting creature, I believe.'

As he speaks, he reveals a small roebuck hiding in the thicket of the surrounding forests.

'So interesting that, as I'd heard it, Amaethon the god of agriculture and luck _stole_ such a creature from the Otherworld – along with a lapwing and a bitch.'

As he speaks, the scenario is enacted amongst his spreading branches.

'Now why do people tell such a _strange_ tale, do you think?'

He stares at me intently, as if expecting an immediate answer.

I'm sure he must have seen my eyes light up on his mentioning of the lapwing and the hound; those who _veil_ and _guard_ the secret.

what is your nature?

a heart feels

an eye must see

a boldness dares follow

I don't think he says this.

I flatter myself I simply think it.

And then he's gone.

And I'm back in the cave with the hound and the angel.

*

# Chapter 18

The angel hasn't made any move towards me while I've been in my trance, or whatever else it was I've just suffered.

In fact, now I take time to stare little harder at him as I wait for him to attack – my sword already instinctively drawn, already uselessly raised to parry any normal thrust with a spear or suchlike – I see that he's suspended a little off the ground, but without the use of his wings of flame; that his head slumps weirdly, almost as if he's just the husk of a man, one cruelly skinned and hung up to dry as a piece of leather.

The hound casually lopes past this angel who, I now see, hangs much as a set of chainmail and a helmet might appear if its back shoulder pieces were draped over a protruding part of the cave wall; a simple means of scaring away anyone entering the cave.

Passing some form of elaborate backpack – I only recognise it as such because it has a similar set of straps to ones I'm familiar with, for it's at least three times the size of our own already heavy, cumbersome packs – the dog heads towards what could be a large pile of rags in the corner until I make out the muddied, bloody colouring of a trooper's robe, laid out in the way we've been trained to use it as bedding.

The dog lies down beside this makeshift bed; and inside the bed, lying sweating beneath the sheeting of the robe, their lies a sleeping woman – but a woman of the weirdest appearance I've ever seen.

*

The sleeping woman is _almost_ human.

He face is much flatter, her nose almost non-existent. Her ears, too, are minute and set incredibly low down.

I touch the side of her face carefully, hoping to wake her up; I can't see that she could cause me much trouble, for I'm sure now that the 'angel' I'd seen hanging by the cave's entrance is actually her armour.

Even so, I keep my sword drawn, and in readiness to bring it swiftly down upon the woman's head should she make any effort to attack me.

She doesn't wake.

It's not so much a sleep she's in, I realise, as a deep trance, perhaps even one similar to the state a shaman slips into when visiting the otherworld.

Is that what this angel is doing? Journeying into the otherworld?

Or is this a trance that's been deliberately induced, the way some of our own medics treat the badly injured with plant and animal venom extracts that put patients under a deep sleep until more sophisticated treatment can be applied?

I glance nervously back towards the cave entrance; does that mean the angels who have helped her are still around?

The dog yawns, like it's his sign that I'm worrying unnecessarily.

Near the backpack, I see a number of small, glass phials, the ends broken, the contents emptied. Were these the medicines administered to the angel?

Did she take them herself, of did she have help?

She must have been injured in one of the battles, and then was either helped here –no, that's ridiculous, isn't it?

I've just seen how quickly the angels can send out a black crow to remove their dead; so why would any injured angel feel they have to leave the battlefield?

All they'd have to do is wait; that would be quite easily the safest course of action.

I pull back the robe a little, to see if I can spot where she's been injured. There are more clothes beneath the robe, made of types of cloth I don't recognise; these must be the angel's undergarments, which she's placed around herself to help keep her body as warm as possible.

There's an elaborate dressing of bandages firmly affixed across her chest, obviously covering some from of wound. Other than that, she doesn't appear to have suffered any other form of injury, unless there are more wounds lower down her body.

Her arms, like her face, are odd, bending at unusual angles. Strangely, she bears no resemblance to the angel babes, who are human in almost all respects other than the presence of the wings on the wrists and ankles; and it doesn't appear, even, as if this lady has _ever_ had wings on her rather delicate wrists.

If she has wings on her back, they must be furled small enough to be hidden beneath her; it's impossible for me to tell while she's lying down like this.

I would suspect that her legs follow a similar construction to her arms– ohh!

It seems _she's_ not a _she_ after all!

*

The hound watches my actions with interest, even looks like he's smiling as I express shock at my discovery.

As soon as he knows he has my attention, he slinks off towards the angel's backpack, where he sniffs at what could be a side pocket. Kneeling down beside the dog, I reach in and pull out a small box, made of some hard yet light material I've never come across before – unless you count the backpack itself, a great deal of which is made from similarly unusual substances.

Within the box there are a few bizarre looking implements, along with a small book made of a much lighter form of vellum than I've ever come across before. I'm tempted to put the book aside, being unable to read anything written down in my own language, let alone some angelic form of it, but the dog – with an urgent prodding of his nose – persuades me to look inside.

There are few words for me to decipher, thankfully. It's mainly some form of patterning, of odd shapes in various colours, but a set of simpler pictorial aids reasonably clearly show that the box's implements should be used to transfer what can only be blood from one angel to another.

Why anyone one would want to do such a thing, I'm not sure, but once again the hound – by sniffing and licking at my wrist, by then sniffing and licking at the wrist of the injured angel – makes it clearer than any diagram that he expects me to use the wristbands and phials contained within the box.

He expects me to save the life of the angel?

I should have already killed him, by rights.

I detect a smell of burning, or at least of something that has been burnt. There are no signs of any fire in the cave, and it dawns on me that the scent of charring is emanating from the backpack.

It's not until I lift the backpack up – it's surprisingly light, weirdly rigid – that I see the holes to either side of it, set low down and apparently movable. There's what could be a sooty substance around the edges, and the stench of burning is stronger still here, as if these work as braziers.

But why would anyone need braziers that are more or less positioned upside down?

Then I understand; _these_ are the wings of fire.

Looking back towards the injured 'angel', I realise now why I hadn't detected any signs of any wings. Even if they did sprout from her back, of course, a backpack this size would severely constrict them.

Do the adults not only lose the small wings of the babies, but also any wings on their backs? Or are the wings of flame just a more convenient or efficient way of flying?

Rising up from my kneeling position by the dog and the backpack, I stride over towards the hanging 'angel suit'.

The dog doesn't seem very happy about this, but at least he's simply curious rather than so angry that he's preventing me from inspecting the suit.

The back of the angel's outfit is definitely scorched. It hasn't burnt through, however, so it must – once again – be made of some material completely alien to us. Does it also absorb or reflect the heat, or are these semi-humans we're up against capable of tolerating extremes of temperature?

Is this how they fly from one planet to another, using these mechanically produced wings of fire? Or do they come across on the giant ravens, which I saw being used earlier?

Next I unhook the helmet, which I find would normally be attached to the suit using a number of elaborate locking devices, but thankfully here it's just been clipped on using some type of interlinking stud. I briefly wonder if the helmet is safe to wear, especially when I realise that I might have mistaken the man for a woman simply because they deem it necessary to adapt their heads to fit within its close, heavily padded confines.

As soon as I slip the helmet on, I'm blinded by a sharp blast of light.

*

# Chapter 19

I whip the helmet up and off my head, hoping my eyes haven't been permanently damaged by the abrupt burst of light.

As I furiously blink my eyes, I sense that – thankfully – there are star-like eruptions amongst the darkness, that there's a darkly formed image of the cave returning.

In a moment, my eyes seem to have returned to normal, if a little pained from their experience.

Looking once more at the helmet, I note the globular green eyes I'd seen the other angels lifting clear of their face, in the way some of our own more expensive helmets have visors than can be worn either raised of dropped into place. Fixing these 'eyes' out of the way, I try the helmet on once more, but more cautiously this time.

There's no blinding light. I'm looking through some sort of transparent visor, one that could be made of something like isinglass, perhaps.

Tentatively, I lower the globular eyes, keeping my own eyes half closed this time, blinking them shut as soon as I recognise that I'm going to be struck by a blaze of light once more.

Opening and shutting my eyes in this way, they become accustomed to this new source of light. Soon, rather than being blinded, I find that I can see into even the darkest corners of the cave, with everything being illuminated by an emerald-like glow.

No wonder the angels could see clearly in the dark.

If they really _are_ angels, that is.

All I've seen so far is that their superiority comes from their equipment, rather than from any more natural advantages.

As soon as I take off the helmet, I'm plunged into a complete darkness, my eyes having to become accustomed once more to the change in light. It takes me longer than expected, my vision being quite hazy, even suffering once again from a sparkling of star-like bursts.

I'm dazed, quite lightheaded, in fact; I feel so unsteady on my feet, I have to consciously think about the way I'm standing to prevent myself from pitching forward.

There's a hollowness in the pit it of my stomach, one that suddenly spreads and rises up to my throat, as if I'm about to be sick.

I gip but, thankfully, stop myself from vomiting.

Even so, I abruptly feel incredibly weak, as if I've been instantly drained of energy. My muscles ache, as they normally would be only after the most tremendous efforts.

Of course, it could all be down to everything I've recently suffered; a hard fought battle, an ignominious defeat, the fleeing of a battlefield strewn with dead who I'd once called friends.

And yet I also feel strangely, _unfamiliarly_ queasy; am I _ill_ , maybe?

Have I caught some form of sickness from this angel?

*

The hound eyes me warily.

The way I'm swaying, the way I've raised a hand to clasp my aching temples; all this, of course, would be obvious to anyone.

But dogs are capable of sensing things we're not; including when someone is unwell.

And when that dog is some sort of Hellhound or whatever he is; well, all the more reason, then, to believe that he knows _something's_ wrong.

He barks, but not loudly. It's just to draw my attention back towards the medicine box containing what I presumed was some form of blood transfusion device.

He can see I'm ill and yet his main concern is for the wounded angel?

It's probably because he brought me here than _I'm_ now sickening!

Unless – was I unwell before I even came here?

Had I contracted some form of sickness during the battle?

That's hardly unusual, after all.

In which case...it could be the dog is trying to tell me a transfer of the angelic blood could save _me_.

*

# Chapter 20

Clipping the wristband around the angel's wrist looks like it should be an easy enough task; as I move to do it, however, the hound barks again, quite irritably this time too, as if he doesn't want me to go ahead with all this blood transference after all.

He forcibly pushes his wet muzzle against my wrist, his way of saying, I'm sure, that he wants _me_ to wear it.

But...that _can't_ be right.

The wristband – if I've interpreted the pictures correctly – _collects_ the blood, saving it in a small phial. Then, when I attach the wristband to my _own_ wrist, the blood should somehow seep into my own body.

How it works, I can't obviously be certain; but I've already witnessed the angels using highly sophisticated equipment.

The dog's becoming quite insistent, however, that I should attach it to my own wrist first.

So, just how much should I trust this dog to get something like this right?

Probably not at all, I suspect.

Suddenly, I'm grabbed fiercely by my wrist.

The angel has woken up; and, rising up in his bed, his face only an inch from mine, he's now glaring at me with furiously bloodshot eyes.

'Who _are_ you?' he demands in a dazed slur. 'You're not Bjorn!'

*

# Chapter 21

Bjorn?

Bjorn was _here_?

Helping this angel?

'I'm a friend of Bjorn,' I say.

The angel looks at the blood transference wristband loosely hanging off his arm.

'No, no!' he snaps sternly. 'You're trying to _kill_ me!'

'No; I'm trying to _help_ you!' I lie.

I can't be sure how much he heard of my lie; he's slumped back into his bed, back into his daze.

But...if he knew Bjorn, shouldn't I be helping him to live anyway?

Maybe, if I can save him, he can tell me why Bjorn decided to betray his people and help this angel instead.

Maybe the dog's right once again after all; maybe I do need to give this angel some of my blood.

Taking up the wristband from where it's fallen by the angel's arm, I wrap it around my own wrist, almost magically snapping it into place.

How it works, I don't know; but blood begins to rapidly swell into the small phial, like some burgeoning berry.

*

When the wristband is snapped around the angel's wrist, the blood doesn't immediately begin to rapidly seep into his body, as I was expecting.

Rather, some incredibly small lamps of various colours begin to glow upon the side of the wristband. The blood saved in the phial goes down incredibly slowly.

How can such a minute amount of blood hope to save a man who must have lost a great deal after the wound to his chest?

With a shiver of horror, I realise that this angelic device might be rejecting my blood; after all, he isn't human. Does the blood of different species mix? I wouldn't have thought so.

Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all – and yet the hound seems remarkably satisfied, lying down upon the ground as if ready for a well-deserved rest.

I make up my own bed, using my own robe. Thankfully, it's quite warm in here, with this side of the hill facing away from the wind; who knows, maybe even the great god himself is granting us warmth.

It's only as I lie down that it dawns on me that the angel had spoken to me in my own language.

Did he learn it off Bjorn?

I can't be bothered trying to work out how the angel came to speak my language, or how he might have come to meet up with Bjorn.

My feeling of sickness – briefly more or less alleviated or at least forgotten while I'd worked on saving the angel – has returned.

I need to sleep, in the hope it helps me fully recover – and as soon as possible, too.

*

# Chapter 22

Hounds are barking.

The Master is singing, his song caressing, seductive, a tune to calm the dead.

The hunt rushes across the landscape, but here the lines of the great figures shimmer as if alive, not as if simply caught in the moonlight.

They rise up from their rest upon the hills, and go about their appointed tasks.

The giants. The hare. The bull. Yes, even the great dragon who, with a flap of his immense wings, takes to the air.

My own hound – yes, perhaps I can call him _my_ hound now – is with me, impatient to be off, as if he has been waiting for me.

He draws close, rubbing his warm flank up close by my waist; he wants me to mount up on his back, much as I would hoist myself up onto a horse.

Wait; why isn't he talking? When we last met in this world together, he could speak.

No; it was as I _left_ this world. Perhaps that's the only time when we can understand each other – and maybe then only in the very simplest of phrases.

Once I'm upon his back, he moves as swiftly across the rolling hills as those hellhounds had, only – thankfully – in what could well be the completely opposite direction. We're heading for the wooded areas of the landscape, those hills covered with a dark weave of towering, closely interlocking trees.

Above us, the giant planet draws nearer, its vast presence now completely intimidating, as if it were a growing, gigantic hole in the sky, in the universe itself.

Inside the woods, the undergrowth is too thickly congealed for me to unfairly continue riding upon my hound. I slip down off his back, walking on behind him, following him along what could only be some rarely used track, for it is barely visible amongst a thicket otherwise left totally undisturbed.

From the thicket ahead of us there comes an abrupt, harsh barking; I come to an instant halt.

Is it one of the Hellhounds, one that's become separated from the rest of the pack?

Is it more than one? Have we ended up heading the wrong way after all?

My own hound remains unperturbed. He continues slinking through the tangled thicket.

Despite my growing unease, I stay close to him.

'The dog _guards_ the secret;' isn't that what my hound had told me as we'd first parted?

The dog is barking louder than ever, a warning to stay away if I ever heard one; it's also a sign that were drawing ever closer to wherever the dog's hiding amongst this dense interweaving of branches.

Suddenly, the thicket just off to one side of where we're heading is disturbed by a violent rustling, a flash of reddish flesh amongst the tangled green.

With a crunching of branches, a snapping of thinner stems, the creature leaps up out of the undergrowth.

Thankfully, it doesn't head our way, however. Rather, it darts off to one side, making yet another remarkably high and graceful leap to take it deeper into the undergrowth.

It isn't a dog.

It's a roebuck.

*

'The roebuck _hides_ the secret.'

I charge through the undergrowth, regardless of the whipping, the stinging, of the innumerable branches.

(What effect does a spirit wood have upon your spirit?)

The dog's strangely a little slower off the mark, following on behind me as he make his own high leaps through the thicket, barking as much now as the roebuck had in its efforts to scare me off.

The roebuck lithely, effortlessly rushes through the chaotic maze of entwining bushes. I might worry I've set myself an impossible task in trying to keep up with it, but it seems like it might be weakening a little, perhaps even suffering an injured leg. Rather than being swiftly left behind, I'm gradually encroaching upon it

The hound is still barking wildly, like he's trying to make my task harder, scaring the poor, bewildered roebuck into keeping up its attempts to flee despite its obvious weariness. Fortunately, the thicket seems to be turning evermore impassable, which is slowing the injured roebuck all the more.

In what could possibly be the very middle of this denser section of the undergrowth, I'm so close to catching up with the roebuck that I risk reaching out to grab it – and then the creature appears to be granted an extra burst of energy, for it springs up and away from my uselessly flailing hands as if abruptly growing wings.

Within another elegant bound, the roebuck effortlessly increases the distance separating us. In a series of prancing leaps, it almost languidly bounces away from me, as if far from being a hindrance the thicket is suddenly acting as some form of springboard for every move it makes.

Not even the hound can be bothered trying to keep up with the roebuck anymore. He glowers up at me, his expression probably the nearest a dog can manage to giving someone a dissatisfied scowl.

He even shakes his head, as if amazed at my stupidity.

'The lapwing _veils_ the secret.'

Of course!

The roebuck has _deliberately_ led me astray!

I glance back the way we came, realising that I've no idea how to make our way back towards where we'd first come across the roebuck. My hound might have a better idea, but he now looks a tad discouraged by my foolishness.

Looking to either side of me, I begin to get an idea why this might be so; the roebuck has led us almost to the edge of the forest once more.

In the moonlight, the hills lying beyond the wood's borders are as silver as rolling mercury. And yet there are other, more unusual flashes of bright light – that of countless spearheads, glinting like so many maliciously glaring eyes.

Column after column is crossing the Ford of the River Perilous.

Maybe the roebuck hasn't led me away from the secret after all.

Maybe _this_ is the secret Bjorn meant the roebuck was hiding.

The Legions of the Dead are on the march; entering our world in overwhelming force.

*

# Chapter 23

When I wake up, I don't feel anywhere near as refreshed as I'd hoped I would.

I still feel delusional, weak.

I've no idea what I'm suffering from, but it's left me totally vulnerable.

I glance over towards the sleeping angel, wondering if he's now dead, thanks to my blood transfusion.

All I can make out at first is a mess of clothing, of a heavily creased robe.

And then I realise; that's _all_ it is – a muddle of clothes.

The angel has gone.

*

It's quite a struggle to get to my feet; I just about fall back, I'm already so exhausted.

I look around for my sword, trying to remember where I'd left it.

It's quite dark in here, apparently evening at least.

Even so, my sword isn't where I'm certain I left it. From what I can tell, the hound isn't here either.

The angel's backpack _is_ still here however, along with his hanging suit of armour.

My chainmail and armour is also all still here; I can't recall taking it off, but I suppose I must have done.

There's a scrambling at the entrance to the cave that uncharacteristically startles me. I breath a sigh of relief when I realise it's my hound returning, who casually breaks into a lazy lope as soon as he's clear of the narrow entrance.

The scuffling noises of someone or something else scrambling at the entrance doesn't stop, however.

The light is partially blocked out, the cave briefly plunged into a semi darkness – someone's squeezing through the squat fissure.

It's only when he stands up and smiles that I recognise him.

It's the angel, of course.

*

The angel is far taller than I'd imagined he would be when I'd seen him lying down.

He now also seems fully recovered.

I desperately look around for my sword once more.

Seeing my panic, the angel holds his empty palms up before him, the same way we do when we're hoping to reassure someone that we mean them no harm.

He grins, too; a wary, gently surprised smile.

'You've been out for a few days,' he says, holding up a skinned rabbit, along with some weirdly transparent bag containing berries and mushrooms. 'I went to get us some food.'

'Out?'

I frown in puzzlement, even though I'm guessing he means I must have passed out.

Why didn't he kill me, or simply leave me?

'For a few days,' the man explains, adding with a nod towards the strange remedies contained within his backpack, 'I used a few medicines that should help you recover.'

'I've caught a sickness? Off you?'

'No, no; not off me, I'm sure of that,' he grins. 'I suppose congratulations are in order; if that, of course, is what you and your people say?'

'Congratulations?

I'm more puzzled than ever.

'Well – the _pregnancy_ , of course!'

*

# Chapter 24

_Pregnant_?

No!

It's _not_ possible.

It's been _months_ since Bjorn and I–

'It _can't_ be,' I mumble. 'There _must_ be some mistake...'

'I...I'm not _quite_ sure how difficult such things are for you; things like delivery and all that, I mean,' the man says, calmly ignoring my protestations. 'I would have called for help, but all my communication devices were damaged in the, er, battle.'

When he talks of calling for help, he strangely indicates his backpack once more, this time using a forlorn wave of a hand. Does he mean mirrors, or flags, when he talks of a communication device?

If so, its fortunate they have been damaged, otherwise I could have found myself a prisoner by now.

But then again, if I've been in a daze for a few days, then he would have had plenty of time to return to his own people and bring them out here to capture me later.

The man strides closer, such that I think he's going for me after all; but he sidesteps, heading for the crumpled sheets of his own bed.

'I'm sorry,' he says, moving some of the rumpled clothing aside, 'you'll want to see her, of course!'

'Her?'

I just seem to be endlessly repeating whatever the man's just said.

'The baby,' he adds brightly, uncovering a sleeping child from amongst the warmly swaddling clothes.

Even as the man brings her to me – yes, I can see it _is_ a daughter – I can also see the small, fluttering wings on the wrists, the ankles.

It's an angel babe.

Bjorn's child.

*

# Chapter 25

When the still sleeping baby is placed in my arms, I'm hit with mixed feelings.

Hate – hate for her, for those who will hate her.

Fear – fear of the danger she brings, fear of what might happen to her.

Love – my love for her, the foolish love I had for Bjorn.

Joy – joy at the wonder of her birth – and yes, joy that she's mine!

She can't be held responsible for her tainted blood.

She smells fresh, new, despite having been swaddled in the man's clothes, in Bjorn's filthy robe.

'You delivered her?' I ask in wonder. Only women are allowed to and are capable of aiding the birth of a baby. 'While I was in a daze?'

'I had no choice; you were quite obviously so close – I had to help. In this respect at least,' he adds with a wry grin, 'your systems aren't that much different from our own.'

'When was she last fed?' I abruptly, worriedly ask.

'Oh, don't worry, I–'

'Your remedies again?'

Noting the way his eyes were drifting back towards his backpack and the medicines it contains, I didn't really need him to explain any further.

'Yes,' he answers, 'though now you're awake, it would be best if you took up more _natural_ feeding?'

He looks at me as if he's not quite sure what 'natural feeding' entails.

Even so, he reaches out to tenderly take the baby's delicately small fingers in his own weirdly formed hand.

'We never realised your offspring were born with wings,' he says curiously.

' _Our_ offspring...but _we_ thought they were linked in some way to _you_!'

'To us?' He's puzzled. 'No,' he says with a shake of his head, a bemused smile, _our_ children aren't born with wings.'

*

'You're _not_ angels, are you?'

Even as I say it, it dawns on me that this realisation isn't really something new to me. I'd considered it earlier, of course, only to dismiss it as nonsensical – what else could these people be but some invading force from the closely drawing planet? How else could we find ourselves giving birth to angelic babes?

'Angels?' The man chuckles, like it's the craziest thing anybody's ever asked him. 'Bjorn thought I was an angel too,' he adds thoughtfully. 'Why do you think we're angels?'

I ignore his question

'You knew Bjorn; how?' I ask.

The baby still lies peacefully asleep in my arms. Whens she wakes, will my breasts be ready for her? I'd displayed none of the usual signs and changes a woman goes through as she prepares to give birth.

'Bjorn saved me; following my instructions on which medicines he needed to administer.'

Once again, he fleetingly glances over towards the phials scattered around his backpack.

'That's how you've managed to survive so long; even when Bjorn left you?'

The man nods in agreement to my question.

'His duty was to kill you; he betrayed my people,' I sternly point out. 'He was a coward who fled his duty!'

The man laughs warily, as if he's unsure how to take my belligerent comment.

'And yet _you_ saved me too, right?' he reminds me. 'I can't be sure what you mean by betrayal, of course, but Bjorn was no coward; I saw him dead upon the battlefield.'

I laugh bitterly.

'How can someone who was dead save you?' I scoff.

He shrugs his shoulders.

'Naturally, that's a question I asked him myself; but he assured me he would only know the answer himself after a few more visits to the otherworld.'

'He was journeying to the otherworld?'

As he nods in agreement his time, he also curiously waves a hand in front of my forehead, his palm glowing in the faintly emanated light.

'We knew you believed you could see your dead; that you could travel to the worlds of the dead – but we'd always assumed it was just a primitive belief. And yet whenever Bjorn said he'd returned from talks with his gods or whatever – he said it was his god who'd told him to spare me, to bring me here; and that I required "angelic blood" if I were to fully recover – he would have arrived at an answer to a problem that had been troubling him.'

Like the child, the hound appears to be asleep, and yet I'm sure I just caught his ears slightly pricking at the man's avalanche of new information that leaves me wanting to ask numerous questions all at once.

'I don't have angelic blood; although Bjorn had.'

'And yet here I am, fully recovered. Which _amazes_ me, as blood transfusion isn't something to be approached lightly! Maybe your child–' he smiles at the baby, who's now tightly clutching his angled fingers – 'has altered your blood. As for Bjorn, his _body_ was dead, remember?'

That explains why Bjorn left the angel – the _man_ , the _alien_ , or whatever it is I should now be calling him – here in the cave, why he went out searching for an angelic baby.

And how did he find this angelic baby? Why, it seems his 'gods' helped him, of course.

'How did he die? How did he return to life?'

Obviously, the second question is one anyone would be desperate to have answered. But I'm also curious regarding the manner of Bjorn's death; did he die bravely after all?

'I didn't see him die; but his head had been completely severed.'

Hah! Didn't I think my own severing of his head had been physically far easier than I'd expected?

'And yet he saved you; he came into our camp,' I point out.

'How he did that – how he came back to life – I don't know,' the man admits with another shrug. 'I thought I was the sole survivor of a hard fought battle, intending to tend any of my own people I found alive. As I bent towards a dead friend, Bjorn's decapitated body rose up and stabbed me in my chest.'

He clutches the section of his chest where I had seen the dressed wound earlier.

'My armour protected me from the worst of it,' the man continues, 'but I thought I must be dying as I saw Bjorn searching for his head, then placing it back into position.'

'And it was his god who told him to spare you?'

This is an important point to clarify; why would our gods be telling us to spare our enemies?

'I thought he would kill me. But he stared at me curiously – almost a little in disbelief – and then he stripped off my helmet. He found a horse that was still alive, slipped me up across its back, and then left the battlefield before anyone had chance to come out and find me.'

I notice for the first time that he no longer wears his wristband; whatever help a transfusion of my blood gave him, he obviously no longer needs it.

The wristband and it's phial is – naturally – over by the medicines left by the backpack; and it seems to me that hardly any of the blood has been used.

Maybe – just as my child might have already altered my own blood – it only takes a small amount to create whatever effect Bjorn was seeking.

I suppose an _angelic_ blood could well be an effective cure-all, after all.

This time, the angel's the one who has followed the direction of my gaze.

'Despite what Bjorn's god might have told him,' he says, 'I must admit I was sceptical about all this angelic blood–'

He stops himself, chuckles as he stares once more at my little daughter.

My _daughter_!

And I haven't _named_ her yet!

'I was about to say "nonsense",' the man confesses (maybe I should ask him _his_ name too!), 'but now I'm beginning to realise that _I'm_ the unknowing fool! I'd told Bjorn that all this idea of an angelic blood was all based on ancient artefacts recalling that angels had once visited earth, or on fanciful interpretations of the fact that there are certain types of blood that don't come from the same rhesus sources.'

'You're saying it _wasn't_ angels that visited the earth? But you – _you_ were here, yes? Your people I mean?'

He nods.

'But I don't know if there's any connection between my people and your people; it's been such a long, long time, with all forms of crossovers and mutations taking place – but _no_ one could have predicted this...this _wonderful_ development!'

He looks once again at my daughter, his eyes possibly full of adoration.

I look beyond him, over his shoulder, staring out through the cleft forming the giant's mouth towards where the rapidly approaching planet is once again visible in the night sky.

But I've never seen it like this before, not in our world. It's still relatively small, of course, nothing like how forebodingly huge it appears when I visit the otherworld; and yet there's no mistaking its odd presence, for it lies where before there had always appeared to be nothing but a gap in the universe.

Now the planet itself appears to be that perfectly spherical, perfectly dark gap in the cosmos.

The question is, will the giant swallow it – or will it swallow the giant, and everything he stands for?

'The planet draws nearer each day,' I say miserably, dreading the day when more of his people arrive once more.

'Planet?'

He sounds mystified. Following my anxious gaze, he turns around to also peer out through the caves opening.

'I've never seen any approaching plane–'

He gasps.

'Oh no, no! I'd no idea it was already _so_ close!'

*

# Chapter 26

Before I can ask the man why he finds the sight of the approaching planet so unbelievable, he's scrambling out of the cave.

I wrap up my child – Bjeliq, I shall call her Bjeliq – in some of the spare clothes I pick up from the nearby crumpled pile that makes up the man's bed.

It's not so easy working my way through the low cleft of the giant's mouth when I have the safety of my child to take into account. At first, unaware of my attempt to scramble after him, the awestruck man continues staring at the approaching planet.

Despite his amazement, he turns to help me when he hears me struggling to pull myself through the fissure. Bending down to take Bjeliq from me, he wraps her tenderly in his arms – but as he prepares to spin around and stare once more at the looming planet, I briefly stop him by offering him my thanks, leaving a space in my sentence in the hope he fills it with a name for me.

'Joshe,' he says, adding in the same hopeful tone I'd used, 'And your name is...'

'Heliq.'

As I answer, I at last pull myself clear of the cleft and, along with Joshe, rise to my feet.

Joshe still continues to affectionately hold onto Bjeliq as he turns and raises his head, gazing up into the night sky as if venerating the arrival of the dark planet.

'How long have you been able to see it there like this?' he asks.

The hound has joined us at some point. He's also watching the approach of the throbbing sphere – yes, it comes now with a dull, threatening humming – yet his gaze is only one of acceptance, it seems to me.

'A few days now,' I say in reply to Joshe's question, reaching out for Bjeliq.

' _Physically_ , it's not yet _this_ close; I...I don't know how it's _possible_ , but you're seeing its potential _impacts_ ,' he breathes in surprise, carefully letting me take Bjeliq from his arms. 'Your blood transfusion, your _angelic_ blood: it must have opened my eyes – no, my _mind_ – to all the things _you_ can see!'

He glances back towards me, as if I might be expecting an explanation.

'You see things we don't...we were always told it was your overactive imagination...'

'I used your helmet; I could see in the dark,' I say, a touch confused by his claim that we see things he's unable to see – how is that possible?

'Yes, yes,' he agrees, nodding as he takes in more and more of the surrounding landscape, his mouth dropping in astonishment, 'but that's only equipment – science. _This_ is like nothing I've _ever_ seen before – ever _imagined_ before!'

The giant hares, the doves, the warriors; they are all rising up from the hills once more, striding out or loping across the landscape.

Joshe's eyes widen all the more in astonishment.

'I never realised, never _knew_ ; it's all...all just so _different_!'

He falls to his knees.

'Oh my God, my God; what _are_ we doing? _Why_ are we killing you?'

*

That, I think, is a good question; why _are_ they killing us?

But before I can demand an answer from Joshe, he's rising to his feet again, this time as much in shock as wonder.

I follow his distressed gaze, looking over towards the beginning of the valley meandering between the evenly undulating hills.

It could be a languidly flowing river, glinting like a pure, fluid silver in the moonlight.

But it's not waters reflecting the mercurial light.

It's the sharpened and polished blades of countless spears.

The spears of the Legions of the Dead.

*

# Chapter 27

'Your people send such a vast army; yet my people will effortlessly kill them all.'

I'm surprised by Joshe's abruptly realised care for the wellbeing of my people.

'It's not _our_ army,' I point out forlornly. 'It's an unbeatable one; for how can we kill those who have already been killed?'

the many heads

the countless eyes

devouring those in its path

what prevails against this beast?

the sibling

who chokes it

'The _dead_?'

Joshe's tone is one of complete uncertainty. He fleeting looks back towards me, seeking acknowledgement that he's understood me correctly.

I nod.

'I can see the _dead_?'

His sense of mingled disbelief and wonder has returned.

Curiously, he waves his hand in front of his forehead, much as he did with me just a few days back. He gasps in elation as he catches his palm glowing with reflected light.

I'm so habitually used to seeing it that I've only just noticed that his forehead now shimmers with blue light, as if he were human after all.

'A _third_ eye; the transfusion must have granted me a third eye!'

He's elated if a little crazy; the emanated light, of course, is nothing like an eye.

The glittering river of the dead is slowly becoming a sea. Behind what was only a vanguard of troops, the rest of the army follows, seemingly trailing back endlessly.

Bjeliq stills sleeps, as if she would sleep through the end of the world.

'There are so many of them,' Joshe almost wails. 'But why _wouldn't_ there be?' he adds with a scoffing laugh, mocking his own stupidity.

He turns back to me.

'Why didn't they take over the earth ages ago?'

This has been pondered over by my own people long enough to arrive at a long-accepted answer.

'Because we give birth to those who will later be their own, new offspring; those who bring a sense of newness to what we must call their lives. While the spirits live within our bodies, they learn things otherwise completely inaccessible to pure spirits.'

'Then...why _now_? Why would they rise up against you, if they _need_ you?'

The hound growls miserably as, rising to his feet, he turns his head away from the approaching army, looking instead down towards the other end of the valley, where it abruptly forks.

'Of course,' Joshe says, his scornful chuckle now bitter and perhaps afraid, 'it's not _your_ people they hunt; it's _mine_!'

*

'If what you say is true – that the dead rely on your people for, as it were, their growth in understanding – then they can't allow my people to eradicate you, can they?'

He says it without a hint of resentment. If anything, his attitude is more one of acceptance of a harsh yet ultimately fair and well-deserved judgement.

'You've recently flooded their ranks with vast numbers of our people,' I point out, vainly trying to keep my own bitterness under control. 'No doubt they were originally thankful for that.'

'With your vision, your people are probably a richer prize than mine; I can only hope they see some worth in my own people...'

'There are none of your people amongst the dead,' I inform him, perhaps with an unfair bluntness.

He appears genuinely startled by this.

'We...we're not amongst the dead? But – how is that possible? We die too; don't we deserve some other form of life?'

I shrug my shoulders.

'I could be wrong, of course; but I've never seen any of your people amongst them. We never see your spirits rise up from the battlefield; it's thought that you don't possess spirits, like we do.'

'No!'

He sounds, looks, broken by this. His legs almost crumple beneath him; he has to fight to steady himself.

'Then they have no reason to _spare_ my people,' he says, a shiver of terror at last entering his voice.

*

# Chapter 28

'I must try and warn them.'

Joshe looks down the darkened valley leading to where his people live. He's thoughtful, obviously trying to work out the quickest means of travel, his chances of success.

Without a horse, despite the slowness of the dead's advance, he will soon tire.

And even if he gets warning to his people, what good will it do them?

They can't run; the dead will always hunt them down.

They probably won't see any reason to run anyway, believing this army will be defeated as easily as every other one they've faced.

'They're going to die anyway,' I point out, feeling miserable for stating the obvious. 'What point is there in warning them they're going to die if there's nothing they can do about it?'

Joshe wrings his hands.

'Maybe...maybe we can show them we didn't mean to start killing you; that it was all a misunderstanding?'

I can't respond to his anguish with anything more considerate than a bitter, scoffing laugh.

'Wiping out my people was a _misunderstanding_?'

'When we first approached your people, wishing to help them – to at least record your achievements and lifestyle – they were obviously distrustful; there were those amongst you who said we were trying to trick you, that we were creatures of a dark underworld.'

'Why would they think that?' I ask.

He shrugs, like he's not sure of the answer; like he's putting certain facts together to come up with a likely scenario.

'Someone must have followed one of our missions back to our home; seen them descending below ground. We'd retreated there thousands of years ago, when the surface air became poisonous to us; we were generally forgotten about, our histories becoming indelibly intermingled with your own. When our envoys were killed, well – we had our own belligerents, who wanted retaliation.'

In my arms, Bjeliq gives a lazy, tired stretch.

She smiles in her sleep.

The wings on her wrists flutter quietly.

I had always feared the angel children; and now here I am, holding one lovingly in my arms.

One delivered by Joshe.

The way we give birth is similar, he'd said.

He could have killed me

He could, at the very least, have left me to die, safely returning to his own people.

'We _can_ live in peace together,' I assuredly declare. 'But – can we persuade the _dead_ that that's possible?'

*

I can ride the hound, provided I cling on tight with my knees, while also holding on even tighter to Bjeliq.

Joshe has to run. His 'wings of fire', as I call them, no longer work, he explains; 'they've run out of fuel.'

We run down the hill, but in a direction that should take us far ahead of where the vanguard of the legions is at present. In this way, of course, we're hoping our paths converge long before the army has reached a point where Joshe's people will attempt a defensive attack.

Our headlong rush down the hill disturbs the evening mist, setting it swirling about us, wraith-like in its coiling.

Wraiths with helmets.

With lances.

And mounted.

With no warning bar the sound of a rising mist, the dead are upon us.

*

# Chapter 29

The lance tips that draw breath, the breath of life from the living, are but a hand's width from us.

We come to an abrupt halt.

'We're unarmed,' I point out, somewhat unnecessarily, as arms would do us little good anyway.

'He's one of them,' the dead all seem to slur as one, like a rumour caught on the breeze, though none move a single muscle about either mouth or throat.

Their blank eyes are fastened upon Joshe.

'He's not like them,' I say, stepping down off the hound, being careful not to disturb the still sleeping Bjeliq (do angel babes _ever_ wake?).

'You; _you_ made him different.'

Some of the eyes now fall on me. The shivering whisper has become an angry accusation.

I nod; I feel it would be pointless attempting to lie to them.

'Yes,' I agree, 'and now I think peace can exist between us; I need to speak to someone who can halt your attack on his people.'

Some of the troops appear to grin, as if amused by my pomposity.

'No one leads; we are all of one mind!'

I can't see why I should disbelieve them when, once again, the multitude of drifting voices seems to come from them all, from no one in particular.

'Shouldn't we kill him anyway?' the voices ask themselves.

'No!' I say – but the voices have already begun to answer their own question.

'He will follow on later.'

There is a uniform coldness in their eyes, their demeanour.

Some of these will have died only recently, at the hands of Joshe's people.

They may be dead themselves, but that does not mean they wish their loved ones still amongst the living should join them.

'This is how it must be,' the ghostly patrol announces, as if it is judgement handed down.

'There are women and children in there!' Joshe snaps. 'Can't they at least be spared?'

The banners of this legion of wraiths ripple silently, as if caught in currents other than those caused by the wind.

' _You_ will be spared,' the voices adamantly declare, as if he should satisfied with this answer. 'This _must_ be done.'

*

# Chapter 30

The great raven takes to the air once more, rising up from a huge hole suddenly opening up in the ground.

Other gigantic carrion follow it up into the sky.

Joshe's people must have somehow seen the arrival of the massed ranks of the dead. How, I'm not sure; and neither is Joshe.

'How...?'

The dead understand his bewilderment.

'Those about to die can often begin to see more of the new world they will soon be a part of.'

If they can see the approach of this great army, then its intent must be equally obvious.

The ravens swoop down en masse upon the unhurriedly advancing legions, now like dragons in their furious roaring, the way they spit out flame with an irate clattering of hundreds of teeth.

The flames sear through the massed ranks as ineffectively as a fire would rage through the mist surrounding us. As soon as the conflagration clears, the formation trots remorselessly on, the only sign that something untoward has occurred being the darkly singed grass, the still burning bushes that the riders pass through as if they don't exist.

In some cases, as if affected by a massive shaking of the ground, the dragon fire makes the earth itself erupt, boulders and huge clods of earth being sent flying skywards as if briefly made abruptly weightless. The ranks of the dead still remain perfectly formed, however, passing over a now invisible ground, the ground as it has been for centuries before this interruption in its wellbeing.

Chattering in disgust at their own failure, the ravens wheel away, soaring up as they come together in preparation for another attack

This time, they come in lower, heading directly towards the oncoming army.

This time, the dead retaliate.

A whole line, as one, launch their javelins high up into the air, as if utilising those unnatural currents that silently whip at their pennants, at their remnants of hair.

The spears whisk upward, an unavoidable, almost solid line of glittering blades of otherworldly metal.

Mercurial in their nature, the tips effortlessly pierce the onrushing ravens, the shafts dragging behind them bringing the coldness of death to those only moments ago alive.

The ravens spin in their death throes, their wings beating frenziedly but fruitlessly at an uncaringly unresponsive air.

The great birds shatter upon the ground, their dark skins shredded from them in an instant, their skeletal frames fleetingly revealed just before their lungs of stored dragon fire erupt as violently as any volcano.

Joshe slumps to the ground as heavily, as broken, as the fallen ravens.

I crouch down beside him, marvelling once again at how Bjeliq could sleep so contentedly though all this strange noise of a literally one-sided battle.

'What will your people still on your planet do?' I ask him, wondering if they would be foolish enough to attempt revenge, or if they would call off their intended invasion.

'My planet?' Joshe asks, frowning in confusion.

'Will your people at least attempt to recover you dead?' I add, seeing that he was perplexed by my question.

Wasn't this how it worked for them? As they didn't rise up from their useless husks, didn't they have to at least _recover_ their dead?

There won't be much to recover from the ferociously burning wrecks that only a moment ago were darkly swooping ravens.

Thick, oily smoke curls up from the flames.

And amongst those coiling clouds swirling across the ground, other forms take shape; the spirits of the dead.

The spirits of _Joshe's_ people.

*

In my surprise, I grab Joshe's hand, steadying Bjeliq in the one arm I'm now holding her by.

'I was _wrong_.' My chest feels tight with the shock. 'Your people _do_ have souls!'

Joshe can obviously see them too; he manages a grim smile.

'Then...we do have _some_ hope, after all,' he breathes sadly.

A few of the dead have glanced our way, their straggles of hair undulating in those invisible currents.

It seems to me that they smile, that they are satisfied; and they expect me to be satisfied too.

The newly dead wander amongst the still advancing hordes, confused by their new state, the expectation of new allegiances.

The legions fail to welcome them, but neither do they treat them sorely; rather, they merely ignore them, much as any army heading off to battle might contemptuously bypass any civilians foolish enough to find themselves upon a battlefield.

The door to the underworld still lies open.

A deep, pained roaring erupts from it, as if the whole of the dark earth is mourning the loss of its children. As if proclaiming that it seeks revenge.

The roaring becomes a grumbling: and abruptly, giant, sandy-hued rats leap from out of the hole, their speed unbelievable as they rush and bounce across the uneven ground.

Their speed is such that they send up vast plumes of dirt and dust whirling up into the air behind them. No feet, no mater how swiftly moving, could achieve such a speed; and so these rats have wheels, and yet unlike chariots they require no steeds to pull them.

And once again, like the ravens, they spit out an irate fire.

*

# Chapter 31

The dead require no elaborate battle tactics.

They lower their lances, break into a trot, and then into a headlong charge.

The opposing sides rush towards each other, but only one side is hoping they prevail.

The other side, the Legions of the Dead, have no need of hope.

Riders and mounts swarm through the oncoming rodents as if they are nothing but shapes made by clouds. The rats, as if abruptly ripped apart inside, stutter and falter, some simply chaotically wheeling to a halt, others jerking in their death throes, briefly launching a little up into the air before rolling across the ground, as rapidly shedding their fragile skins as the ravens.

The formation of the legions at last momentarily breaks, but only as they ride around the stilled rats, allowing the bewildered souls rising up from the carcasses to aimlessly wander for a while as they dazedly attempt to determine what they need to do next.

Will they eventually return to their own planet?

I stare up at the dark disc in the night sky.

Is this where the dead of Joshe's people have their own home?

Is that why, at last, their spirits are rising up from their bodies – because their home is drawing close once more?

My gaze naturally switches from the gaping hole in the sky to the gaping hole in the ground as angels begin to rise from it on their wings of fire; their blades and arrows of flame just as useless against the dead as the dragon's breath unleashed upon them earlier.

The lances of the legions', however, are once again born aloft on otherworld currents, are once again swift bringers of death. The angels briefly arch agonisingly in space, then dip and swerve uncontrollably on flaming wings that only gradually fade, or flicker and stutter, at last allowing the lifeless husks to fall back to the earth like spluttering, falling stars.

As they plummet back to the ground, the ranks of the dead relentlessly flow on beneath them, their own progress perfectly silent, yet accompanied now by the grating of shifting mountains; for the vast doors of the opening to the underworld are beginning to lazily slip back into place.

Seeing their last line of defence fail, Joshe's people only further demonstrate their lack of understanding of what they are up against by sealing themselves within their underworld domain; for now there will be no escape for _them_.

The great doors don't exist in the world, or the time, of the dead. And so the iron or whatever that has gone into their manufacture present no obstacle to the remorseless surge of the dead's columns.

'So, this is how man faces his end,' Joshe mumbles as he weeps.

*

Do all peoples call themselves 'man'?

If so, perhaps 'man' will never actually come to an end. He – and _she_ , of course – will always live on in some form or another.

As the dead pour into the underworld of Joshe's people, he looks up towards the approaching planet.

'I suppose there's no point in weeping; for it seems Nibiru means to finish us _all_ off this time. We could have avoided all this, if we'd saved the right people...'

A number of times now, Joshe has used words that might imply he doesn't see this planet – this _Nibiru_? – as his home.

Maybe they have lived here on earth too long; when you leave your homeland, and set up your villages somewhere else, how long does it take before a generation regards this new place as their real home, the old home as an alien land?

of home I speak

not knowing it now

for many a year

for many a year

I doubt my words

is this the home I speak of?

Seeing my puzzled expression, Joshe explains a little more.

'There were so many, many people to save, but so few places underground; and the politicians and lawyers had reserved theirs, claiming we'd need their leadership, their skills at interpreting laws – when in fact there were no societies to lead, no established laws that still made sense. We stagnated, unable to make the advances that would have enabled us to flee earth.'

'You would have returned; back to your home planet, this Nibiru?'

Joshe isn't listening to me. He's risen to his feet, to get a better view of the doors leading down to the underworld.

They still remain firmly closed, of course.

But the first lost souls of children are appearing there, wandering through those vast artefacts of metal every bit as easily as our own dead would.

There are men and women with them too, of course; yet it is always the souls of the children who present the most heart-breaking sight. Have they learned all they should while habiting their physical bodies. Or will they have to return, reliving all the old lessons and more?

Their cruel task completed, the legions are next to begin to file back out of the doors.

Unlike before, however, when they simply nonchalantly rode past the dazed souls, the riders lean down from their mounts now to hoist the sprits of Joshe's people up behind them.

Even those lost spirits thrown from their burning ravens and rats, or cast back to earth when their wings of fire finally faltered, are picked up by the returning legionnaires. The sprits accept these offers of a ride without demur, as if they are at last becoming accustomed to their new state.

As soon as the army of the dead are sure they've picked up every last one of these wandering souls, the riders urge their horses to pick up the pace. It goes from a steady trot, to a gallop, and then to a full-on charge.

And then the hooves of the horses begin to rise up off the ground.

And the massed formations of the army of the dead wheel up into the night sky.

*

# Chapter 32

Only a few of the dead who had apprehended us had bothered to dismount.

Now even these are returning to their horses, preparing to hoist themselves up into their saddles once more.

'What's happening to my people?' Joshe demands anxiously. 'What are you _doing_ with them?'

The dead man stops, turns, the hair protruding from beneath his helmet swirling about him as if caught in unseen waters.

'The souls of your people had become too enamoured of their bodies,' the voices explain. 'Only we could release them.'

' _Release_ them?' Joshe explodes. 'By _massacring_ them?'

Joshe is so intent on accosting the dead man that he's no longer watching the massed riders ascending up into the night sky. They're moving incredibly swiftly, no doubt rising on those rolling waves that remain invisible, untouchable, lying beyond the senses of the living.

The hooves of the charging horses soundlessly pound upon the night sky as if discovering steps there, steps taking them ever closer to the black disc of the descending planet.

The dead are helping Joshe's people return home.

The black orb is far closer now, far closer than when the angel and her mother soared upwards towards it.

I can sense a throbbing in the air, as if it is a breathing, living thing that languidly approaches us.

It isn't just the legions that are rising up towards the hovering planet. From the dark wickerwork of forests, there now also rise those others of the dead who were never warriors; the farmers, carpenters, milkmaids, the children. Along with them there are the creatures, those of the farm and of the woodlands, joining in this mass exodus of our dead.

It seems they wish to make Joshe's planet their own home too now

As for the dead who quietly stand by us, they appear to see no reason why they should reply to Joshe's question; they're a people of few words – no doubt they believe they have explained everything they need to.

The fault lies with the listener, for not listening correctly, for not understanding.

'They're taking your people back,' I say to Joshe, answering for them. 'To their real home.'

'Home?' Joshe scoffs.

The dead man hoists himself up into his saddle, the last amongst them to do so.

'The rest of the living must follow later.'

The voices seem to rush through me.

The dead man turns slightly in his saddle to glance down at Bjeliq. She still sleeps, as if unaware of the mayhem surrounding us; as if in a different pace, another world.

'If you stay, it will not be a nice way to die,' the voices whisper, a whisper mingling ominously with the humming of the dark orb. 'You could come with us now: the answer is lying in your hands.'

Without the sound of any orders, or the clink of buckles and mail, the troops urge their horses into motion, in a moment rushing towards the more steeply inclined edge of the hill we stand upon.

They don't slow their pace as they approach the edge; rather, they spur their mounts into a more furious gallop.

Naturally, instead of toppling, they gracefully swirl up into the air, as fluid as a flock of starlings curling their way across the sky.

As if their flight has caused a disturbance, the hill rumbles unnaturally, the otherwise completely silent nature of their rising accompanied now by the loosening of pebbles, rocks, even large boulders.

Over towards the forests, the tops of the trees shiver, some of them weirdly beginning to ascend, rising up from amongst their companions as if joining all those fleeing towards the darkly throbbing disc.

Then they fall back, as if too heavy, as if refused permission to swap their home on earth for one on this new planet.

A nearby hill rips apart, a dark grey fissure running down it.

'Its happening again!' Joshe morosely wails. 'Nibiru is tearing the earth apart!'

The whole earth quakes in fear.

I almost fall, as does Joshe, but we manage to steady ourselves.

This is what the dead meant when they said it won't be a nice way to die.

The earth will no longer be our parent, our nurturer, but our tormentor, as he himself slowly, painfully dies

The answer lies in my hands?

I look down at Bjeliq, who still lies undisturbed by the approaching end of days.

They mean Bjeliq, of course; she contains the answer to our problems.

Yet her wings are nowhere near strong enough to bear herself upwards, let alone to carry me along with her as the other angel had taken her own mother up.

The baby was dead, the mother was dead; is this how the dead mean for us to follow on behind them?

A cruel joke then; 'the answer lies in your hands.'

Suicide.

Filicide: murder.

_That's_ what they mean.

*

# Chapter 33

The hills, once so still, so seemingly permanent, now roll as if alive, as if transformed into fluid waves.

Trees lean, topple, as even the deepest roots are loosened.

Grassy earth shivers, cracks and breaks up, turned over as if by an immense yet unseen ploughman.

A storm is already blowing up, too, howling in malice as it anticipates the extra destruction it will deliver upon the land.

'We can't shelter in there anymore,' Joshe states blankly, staring mournfully upon the closed doors to the underworld. 'Even if we could get in, there are _so_ many dead bodies to...'

He can't finish his sentence.

He means the bodies will rot, poisoning the atmosphere.

The hound, at least, has made a decision on what we should do.

He's looking back longingly towards the hill we'd originally come from; the hill where we can take some form of shelter within the giant's mouth.

He's simply waiting for me to mount up on his back once again, to make sure our journey back is as swift as possible.

*

'Your people,' I say to Joshe, as we both stare forlornly through the giant's jaws at the storms and destruction enveloping the earth, 'can't _they_ help us?'

Joshe's expression changes to one of bewilderment.

'Heliq: you just _saw_ them all killed!'

'I mean the ones on your planet!'

'My planet?'

'But...'

I hesitate, wondering if I should ask this; am I'm dreading upsetting him, or dreading the answer?

Have I simply refused to accept the true meaning of his words, preferring instead to continue believing the words of our shamans that Joshe's people came from this planet?

'Wasn't this planet your home: I mean, from where your people originally came from?'

His laugh is a touch exasperated; which, under the circumstances, I could hardly find surprising.

'How could it ever have been our home, Heliq? It's Nibiru, whose orbit brings it through our own system of planets every four thousand years: but they're just legends, all this nonsense than man came from some other world. We're – we _were_ – descended from earlier species; in our case one who, along with most of humanity, was one of the countless species more or less wiped out after Nibiru's last visit here, when it set off our weapon stockpiles, poisoning the air.'

'Humanity? But you're – your _people_ – were the ones _wiping_ out humanity, wiping out _us_!' I scoff angrily.

' _Us_?'

Joshe frowns in complete bewilderment.

'Wait, wait; of _course_ ,' he says abruptly, his eyes widening with sudden understanding, 'you – _your_ people – think _you're_ human, don't you?'

What else could I do but also frown in complete bewilderment?

'Of course _we're_ human, Joshe; _you're_ the aliens!'

Joshe's eyes widen all the more; and then he chuckles.

'I suppose...yes, yes, we _are_ , aren't we?'

He laughs again.

'Why the laugh?' I snap. ' _We're_ human; you can't just take _on_ the term, like your people have!'

'Well, if we both accept that we'd both like to think of ourselves as being, well, let's say, "man", _we_ get our _rhesus_ blood because we were descended from the apes – whereas we call you Cornovii, meaning "people of the horn", because, of course, you evolved in your _own_ way.'

I shrug, a touch disappointed even though I can see why Joshe's people might have referred to us in this way; although only the men have what we would really call horns, of course.

'Evolved?' I say, confused by his use of the word regarding my people.

'From the deer?' Joshe says quite nonchalantly. 'Your people evolved from the deer; or rather, the roebuck, to be quite specific.'

*

# Chapter 34

The roebuck?

_This_ is the secret she hides?

She is the _mother_ of my people, if we stretch far enough back into time.

Our earliest ancestor; yes, that's what Joshe is implying, isn't it?

This is what Bjorn wanted me to discover for myself; for if I hadn't heard it from someone such as Joshe, if I'd have heard it only from Bjorn, would I have believed it?

Probably not.

And if we evolved from such an innocent looking little creature, then why can't we evolve further and develop wings?

I look down fondly upon Bjeliq who, cradled in the crook of my left arm, still sleeps there as if it is the most comfortable bed in the world.

I feel her tiny hand in mine, her minute fingers unconsciously clutching around my fingers: the wings on her wrist fluttering lightly.

She opens her eyes

She gives me a tired smile.

Then she turns to look through the crumpled teeth of our giant host.

At the mouth of the cave, a timid roebuck nervously peers inside, her head held nervously, subserviently low.

Then, as if seeking shelter, and despite our presence, she demurely enters.

*

Suddenly, Bjeliq no longer lies in my cradling arm.

She's gone.

And I'm lost; lost in a darkly tangled thicket.

*

# Chapter 35

The ominous rumbling of the planet now completely dominating the night sky is even louder here than in our own world.

All around me, the dark trees of the otherworld forest are being torn from the earth with strained, pained wails, their roots struggling to hold onto the soil before giving up the struggle with a violent snap, a twisted coiling of released stems.

Even so, amongst all this terrible noise of the forest being torn apart, I hear a light crunching of twigs just to my side.

The roebuck is still with me.

She's in almost the precisely same position, the precisely same stance – her head still held demurely low – as she had been when she'd entered our cave.

And yet her eyes hold mine.

They're like the eyes of the hound, at least in the way they seem to recognise that I need help.

She turns a little, then looks back, waiting.

She – or maybe 'she' is a he, as a pair of feather white horns protrude from the top of the head like immature, underdeveloped wings – wants me to follow him, deeper into the chaotic thicket.

I glance nervously about me, hoping my hound has followed me here into this otherworld, to give me guidance as he had done before.

He's nowhere to be seen.

The last time I followed the roebuck, of course, it was all a ploy to lead me astray; along with the barking like a hound to scare me off, the feigned lapwing-like injury to fool me into believing I would easily catch up with him.

And this, once again, could be another trick; a means to take me away from whatever it is he really wishes to protect.

Even so, I think...I think...I should _follow_ the roebuck.

*

The thicket is denser still here.

I have to wrench straggling branches aside, cutting my hands and arms badly.

The roebuck seems to know an easier way, as if he carved out a tunnel beneath all this interwoven undergrowth long ago.

Similarly, he and his mate have at some point created a clearer area amongst the snarled stalks where they've built their home, a nest not unlike something I would expect a large bird to construct, made as it is out of woven stems.

Nestled in the midst of all this ingenious wickerwork, a child lies contentedly asleep.

But it's not a roebuck.

It's an angel child.

*

# Chapter 36

The minute wings decorating the baby's wrists flutter wildly, as if she's aware she might soon be disturbed by my presence, even though she continues to sleep on through the noise I make as I approach.

Do all angel babes sleep apparently endlessly like this? Even when, like this one, they have ended up in the otherworld, having met an early end in ours?

If they do, I find it hard to understand how any of them can survive when they spend most of the time being so helpless; they're not even capable of crying out for help if they sleep so soundly and for so long.

Is that why the child has to be hidden away here, deep amidst the thicket? Protected by the roebuck, whose duty it is to lead any potential discoverer astray?

But why has this roebuck lead me directly here to his nest – to his _secret_ , maybe? – when the roebuck I'd come across earlier had deliberately led me even deeper into the entangled undergrowth?

Presuming, of course, that that earlier roebuck had also an angel child to protect.

But why would it need protecting?

The dead generally welcome anyone who has earned the right to come here by dying; it is only those who are still alive whose unnatural presence they resent.

Maybe, as in our world, the angel children are loathed or feared, being seen as something out of the ordinary, something thereby dangerous or at least lying beyond our understanding.

The angel child sleeps on even as I draw so close that I can breath in her delicious scents.

I reach down, pick her up; cradle her lovingly.

Don't they say a mother can always tell her own child?

*

# Chapter 37

Wait!

Does that mean Bjeliq's dead?

But _I'm_ not dead – as far as I'm aware – and _I'm_ here.

Have I gone into another daze? Has that also happened to Bjeliq – she's in a daze?

Thankfully before I drive myself into crazed anxiety trying to work out what's happened to her, I'm distracted by a rustling in the undergrowth behind me.

I'm expecting another roebuck to appear, but it's not; it's the hound, the hound who was also in the cave with us.

The only one missing now is Joshe.

I doubt, though, that he has any knowledge of traveling into the otherworld: I doubt if he even realises it's possible.

The hound doesn't seem at all surprised by either my presence or the baby's.

He timidly draws up alongside me, lowering his head.

He coughs.

And from out of his mouth there spills the phial of angel blood.

*

Even though the cacophonic ripping apart of the great forest continues, I once again hear the very lightest of rustling amongst the undergrowth as yet another hound slinks in amongst us.

She looks different to the hound who has accompanied me; she's far more graceful – perhaps even perfectly formed.

With a fluttering of wings, a bird is the next creature to alight by the nest. It's a lapwing, though not one making any attempt at feigning injury.

The roebuck draws closer to these two new arrivals; and with a quivering like the ripples of a pool in reverse, the three begin to swiftly merge.

In their place there stands a woman – a woman swan-like in her pure, glisteningly delicate beauty.

*

# Chapter 38

In her slender hand, somehow, the woman holds the phial of blood.

She turns to me; and smiles.

It is the smile of the sun upon a field of ripe corn.

Her face is the moon, reflected on the clearest and yet deepest of pools.

Her eyes sparkle like stars, her hair shines as if it were a cascading Milky Way.

She looks to my hound.

She _speaks_ to my hound.

'I think your task in your world is complete; and I will reward the hound for giving you shelter by allowing his soul to join you as your companion.'

The hound ripples like moving waters, as the three creatures had.

In an instant, a man stands in his place.

It's Bjorn.

*

Grinning joyously, Bjorn steps towards me, his arms spread in readiness to embrace me.

I step back, frowning, confused over how I feel about this.

But as he wraps his arms warmly around my waist, I find my own arms curling about him, enjoying his kiss; even though it is strangely cold yet tingling.

He isn't the coward, the betrayer of our people I'd taken him to be, of course.

And our child is _beautiful_ – remarkably so!

'I'm so glad you're safe,' he breathes happily as we finally part.

He glances down at the child.

'And our daughter is _wondrously_ beautiful!'

As he speaks, the hound who has been my companion for so long appears behind him, taking up the spot Bjorn has just vacated. This hound, however, is a little more transparent than it had appeared a moment before; it is the spirt of the hound, then.

'And you?' I say, trying to quickly work out what all I've just seen must mean. 'You were still alive, even after I...I...'

I can't say it; I can't say that I hacked off his head, even though he now stands before me once more.

'You were the hound?' I ask instead.

He nods. He fleetingly looks back with a thankful grin towards the spirit of the dog, who draws close to his heels.

'He offered me shelter, sharing his body, so my soul could continuing traveling in our – in the earthly world. It meant I was still a hound in this world too, of course,' he adds with an amused chuckle, his tone immediately becoming more serious as he also says; 'but now it's time to abandon our old world, our old forms, Heliq.'

Around us, the dark forest continues to be tortuously pulled apart by the effects of the looming planet. But my focus is upon Bjorn's back as he turns slightly to fondly massage the hound's head.

He has wings; huge wings of the most gloriously white feathers.

*

# Chapter 39

I glance nervously down at Bjeliq, remembering now how the dead angel child I'd seen earlier in this world had abruptly grown, had sprouted her own vast, angelic wings.

And yet she sleeps on, still a helpless babe.

Bjorn notes my anxiety.

'She – Bjeliq – still lives,' he says with a warm smile, adding as he detects my puzzlement that he should know her name, 'I was there as the hound as you nursed her, remember?'

'That's why she sleeps; because she traveling in this world?'

He shakes his head.

'She sleeps because she's still getting used to the fact that she exists in both the earthly and this world. Something denied me when my parents – although well meaning – hacked off my wings.'

He takes my hands, looks deeply into my eyes, perhaps his way of showing he's serious when he says, 'Just as _you_ can now move in both worlds; just as the original angelic creatures left here on an earlier visit by Nibiru can.'

He turns to face the goddess.

Does he mean her?

Or does he mean the roebuck, the lapwing and the so called Hellhound that she took her form from?

'Even I no longer recall who came first,' the goddess says, as if she has either recognised the cause of my bewilderment of even possibly read my thoughts.

'I see you hold the angelic blood,' I say, indicating the small phial she holds in her hand with a slight nod of my head. 'May I ask why, if you're surrounded by all these angelic creatures?'

'Because _you_ still have a task to complete within your old, earthly existence, of course.'

*

# Chapter 40

When I find myself back in the cave, I'm not coming out of a daze, as I had been expecting; I'm talking to Joshe, who's saddened that the hound has surprisingly yet peacefully died in his sleep.

'Perhaps it's better for him this way,' Josh says, glancing out through the giant's mouth, towards a world being painfully ripped apart. 'I don't suppose there's any point in burying him?'

'He's fine; he's in the otherworld now, believe me,' I can say with complete confidence to Joshe.

Joshe smiles wryly, half wanting to believe me, half sceptical; he has no idea, I take it, that I've been journeying in that very same otherworld where I saw the hound.

But why would he suspect that I had?

I was here, I realise, when the hound had curiously sniffed around Joshe's backpack; when he had lazily lain down, as if just ready to take a long sleep.

I was here when the roebuck had lain down by the side of Bjeliq, who I had set down in her bed, who still peacefully sleeps.

The only clue I have that I haven't imagined my travels is that I hold the phial of blood in my hand.

*

I take Bjeliq up in my arms once more.

'Joshe,' I say firmly, realising he's going to wonder if I've lost my mind, 'we need to step outside; I need to talk to the Stag-Headed God.'

Briefly glancing out once more at the increasingly ravaged landscape, Joshe turns back to me with a horrified expression; but then, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he begins to help me scramble though the tight cleft that forms Cernnunos's mouth.

Outside the relative safety of the great god's throat, the full wretchedness of earth's painfully tortuous death is made all the plainer to us, the surrounding hills ironically rolling and heaving now as if fully, energetically alive, as if made fluid as death claims not just the planet, but Cernnunos himself; for yes, there comes a time when even he must die, to make way for the new.

As we slip like quiet words from the god's mouth, we look back at him.

Joshe gasps in disbelief; for he can see him now too, of course.

Cernnunos's antlers branch ever upwards, like some great pulsating tree being agonisingly stretched and pulled to reach up to, to become one with, the angrily throbbing Nibiru

The forests and even the seas, teaming with frenziedly tossed life, chaotically whirl around a creaking, cracking trunk.

Under his great weight, his feet still hold in place earth that, elsewhere, is being wrenched free in great, island-sized clods that soar and swirl up into space.

'You have the blood?' he asks me, his voice strained and heavy.

I nod and, as the goddess had instructed me to do, I hand him the opened phial, allowing him to delicately take it by the tips of his huge fingers.

As Cernnunos lifts the phial up to his great mouth, letting the blood slip between his lips as if it were nothing but the merest drop, those other giants who are still close by forlornly glance back; but they know this is something he must do, just as their task now is to move on and spread the message to my people that it is time to leave this existence – before they too (giants and men) begin to crumble away to nothing, to die.

The goddess had told me the great god and the giants are resigned to their fate, that they only wish to see their people saved from the torments their own suffering is unintentionally imposing upon their children.

'Can't...can't the blood save _you_ too?' I tearfully ask the great god, shocked by the destruction being endlessly and mercilessly wracked upon his body.

He attempts a sad smile.

'It must be shared around; there could never be enough – it is for my children alone!'

The blood is rising as sap rises, up through the massive trunk, along the limbs of spreading branches. It falls with the rain; it swirls in the streams, the rivers, the seas; it is drawn from wells, and heartily, thankfully drunk.

'I wish only that you, my children, survive me,' the great god says, his branches losing their leaves, even snapping, in a swirl of increasingly violent winds, 'and tell good things of me.'

His voice, like his immense torso, is now cracking, breaking up. Slivers fall from him in great lumps that first plummet then unnaturally rise, joining the rest of the vast chunks of landscape now hurtling up into space.

He sags, as life rapidly drains away, his legs shaking, crumpling beneath him. He's staggering, unable to proudly stand.

'You must go now,' he says, managing what could be a last smile with his great mouth.

In my arms, Bjeliq is suddenly limp and lifeless.

*

Even though I know that this is how it _must_ be, it's strangely, instantaneously horrifying to see her like this.

Heart-breaking, even though I no longer have a _physical_ heart to break.

I tenderly place her now lifeless body upon the floor.

The earth beneath her rumbles unsteadily, as it does everywhere now. Soon it will open up, claiming her.

Although I haven't informed Joshe what needs to happen next, he seems to instinctively understand: for now his body lies down upon the ground, alongside Bjeliq.

My body joins them too, with nothing more than a resigned, exhausted sigh.

_We_ are still standing of course.

My daughter, now already old enough to stand alongside me, to reach for and take my hand, smiles up at me.

In a moment, her height matches mine. Wings rise up from her back; the most beautiful wings I have ever seen, quite glorious in the way they appear to be formed from reflections of light rather than of feathers.

Far across the hills, the wandering giants are beginning to crumble, to crumple, just as the chalk lines they are formed from begin to crack and break, to fall away.

But they have achieved their set tasks.

Those who can still manage it wave happily at the men, women and children rising up from the splintering earth on their vast wings of light. The creatures follow them too, of course, rising up into the dark sky like a cloud of ascending shooting stars.

Leading them all are the original angelic creatures; the roebuck, the lapwing, the hound.

Bjeliq was born and raised for this too, of course.

'Are we ready mother, Joshe?' she asks. 'And you too, little one?' she says with a smile for her protective roebuck.

Joshe spreads out his wings.

I look down fondly at the three husks that have protected us, sheltered us, while we lived here on earth.

Cernnunos himself is fairing badly now, great chunks being ripped away from him.

He's crumpling, weakening.

'Go _now_ , my children,' he says. 'I don't have long!'

'Thank you...thank you for caring for us, great god Cernnunos,' I reply, weeping.

But then, like my daughter, like Joshe, like everyone else on this crumbling earth, I spread my wings, I set them beating – and I soar up into the dark sky.

And the cavernous mouth of Cernnunos speaks for the very last time.

'Take care my children; and remember me fondly to _your_ children!'

End

If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas – The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

