were soldiers in the wood. But then he thought better of it. For one can fight the powers of darkness for an immediate decision, but men are inexorable , they pursue vengeance until they drop in their tracks. Turn them aside, and they come back again and again, like maddened dogs.
The legs began to run, but in another direction. Added to the music he heard shouts. Now the dog was uncertain. Dogs can only deal with one man at a time. It was his turn to lead the way.
It must have been the moon that irradiated the fog, but now that light went out. It was not dawn, it was darker than ever. No army went out before dawn. Unless it was an army lost in the wood, that music must only have been a resinous wind, or something worse.
There were ghost armies. He persuaded himself not to believe in them, squinted his eyes, and crept on. The dog was close to him now. It said nothing, but from time to time he could feel its barbed fur against his legs. Why do animals that are genuinely frightened instinctively try to form themselves into circles? The dog’s spine flipped this way and that convulsively.
Then, he did not know how much later, he knew the woods were almost over, and that he was almost home, a word he had not even thought of for twenty years. The trees spaced themselves with more decorum, a discreet distance from each other. And the mist was all at once very active, parting in panic, from a gust that blew against it from the wood itself.
Beneath him he felt the dog bristle. He had learned now to trust the dog. He looked each way.
Small white blobs were writhing through the black grasses. He saw another and another. If the dead could be so badly wounded they could only crawl into eternity, they would move like this, with a bloated white flattened stealth, as though a wind-torn piece of paper might be sodden into three dimensions. And they were all crawling towards him. He drew back, drawing into himself, even as the dog did. He was accustomed to ghosts, but these were ghouls unknown even to the night side of his mind.
They made no sound, except the rubbing of their drowned bodies, slapping against the leaves. They paid no attention to each other. But they all flowed one way.
Then he looked more closely at the nearest one. There was nothing he could do but stare. It was silky. It was white. It was thoroughly irritated, and it reached for each step with a kneading paw, just as a dancer, or a sumo wrestler, puts his foot to the ground not once, but several quick times, to emphasize that he is standing exactly there, in order to terrify his opponent before launching out at him.
It was a cat. They were all cats, tight with a fury of eviction, streaming over the level ground towards him, the residual population of an entire village, no doubt, whom something had forced to this. They kept their distance. The loose-knit blanket of them parted to flow on either side of him, but he could feel their discomfort and fury, even though they said nothing.
He went on, over slowly rising ground, but it was not until the trees began to thin even more, that he became afraid of where he now was. Shadows loomed up in the fog and slipped away like thoughts. They had the sour smell of the very poor. It was the sort of mist that hasnothing to do with weather, but is instead some sort of creature on the prowl. In an open patch he could almost hear it breathing. Suddenly the mist ripped away, like the wrappings of a parcel one is too eager to open, and he found himself standing on a rise, looking down across a vast and almost familiar valley.
He was weary and feverish and thirsty. He would have believed in anything he saw. But he knew where he was, for his family had once owned all this valley. It was not now more than ten miles to his brother’s house. And though he had never visited it before, he knew the landscape from his brother’s pictures. From being, a hundred years ago, one of their minor properties, it had become his brother’s
The legs began to run, but in another direction. Added to the music he heard shouts. Now the dog was uncertain. Dogs can only deal with one man at a time. It was his turn to lead the way.
It must have been the moon that irradiated the fog, but now that light went out. It was not dawn, it was darker than ever. No army went out before dawn. Unless it was an army lost in the wood, that music must only have been a resinous wind, or something worse.
There were ghost armies. He persuaded himself not to believe in them, squinted his eyes, and crept on. The dog was close to him now. It said nothing, but from time to time he could feel its barbed fur against his legs. Why do animals that are genuinely frightened instinctively try to form themselves into circles? The dog’s spine flipped this way and that convulsively.
Then, he did not know how much later, he knew the woods were almost over, and that he was almost home, a word he had not even thought of for twenty years. The trees spaced themselves with more decorum, a discreet distance from each other. And the mist was all at once very active, parting in panic, from a gust that blew against it from the wood itself.
Beneath him he felt the dog bristle. He had learned now to trust the dog. He looked each way.
Small white blobs were writhing through the black grasses. He saw another and another. If the dead could be so badly wounded they could only crawl into eternity, they would move like this, with a bloated white flattened stealth, as though a wind-torn piece of paper might be sodden into three dimensions. And they were all crawling towards him. He drew back, drawing into himself, even as the dog did. He was accustomed to ghosts, but these were ghouls unknown even to the night side of his mind.
They made no sound, except the rubbing of their drowned bodies, slapping against the leaves. They paid no attention to each other. But they all flowed one way.
Then he looked more closely at the nearest one. There was nothing he could do but stare. It was silky. It was white. It was thoroughly irritated, and it reached for each step with a kneading paw, just as a dancer, or a sumo wrestler, puts his foot to the ground not once, but several quick times, to emphasize that he is standing exactly there, in order to terrify his opponent before launching out at him.
It was a cat. They were all cats, tight with a fury of eviction, streaming over the level ground towards him, the residual population of an entire village, no doubt, whom something had forced to this. They kept their distance. The loose-knit blanket of them parted to flow on either side of him, but he could feel their discomfort and fury, even though they said nothing.
He went on, over slowly rising ground, but it was not until the trees began to thin even more, that he became afraid of where he now was. Shadows loomed up in the fog and slipped away like thoughts. They had the sour smell of the very poor. It was the sort of mist that hasnothing to do with weather, but is instead some sort of creature on the prowl. In an open patch he could almost hear it breathing. Suddenly the mist ripped away, like the wrappings of a parcel one is too eager to open, and he found himself standing on a rise, looking down across a vast and almost familiar valley.
He was weary and feverish and thirsty. He would have believed in anything he saw. But he knew where he was, for his family had once owned all this valley. It was not now more than ten miles to his brother’s house. And though he had never visited it before, he knew the landscape from his brother’s pictures. From being, a hundred years ago, one of their minor properties, it had become his brother’s
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