Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(44)

“What else can you see?”

“I’m going to stand. Stay down.” Randolph rose to his feet, and looked.

The ghostly castle was shimmering silver still, but there were clawing shapes rising against its walls, weed-ragged, needle-mouthed, lightless. A lot of shapes. Surrounding them.

“Shit.”

“Don’t you dare not tell me,” Saul said through his teeth.

“There’s about five hundred fen-grendels at the walls. I don’t know if the defences will hold. I think perhaps they won’t.”

“On second thoughts, I didn’t want to know.” Saul stood, naked but for the jacket, fists clenched. “Can we fight?”

“Of course we can.”

“Can we win?”

There was another bubbling scream, and a rending noise. Randolph looked over at the castle’s silvery wall and saw the marks, the pressure of long scratches from the other side against the walls, and a night-coloured spot that suggested something had got a claw through. As he looked, the spot became a tear, slow and dreadfully sure. “That, I cannot promise.”

Saul’s head went back, chin up. Naked, helpless, sightless, and still not giving in. “Right. Well. Lead on, then.”

“I hadn’t finished,” Randolph said. “I can’t promise victory, but by God I intend it. I have something to say to the fen-grendels and whatever insane spirit of a long-dead lunatic may lie behind them. I have something to say to whoever has provoked this, and to every force keeping us here against our will. My will.” He let his voice rise. “I am the Keeper of Wayland’s Words, the Walker of Camlet Moat, a Green Man of the Green Men. I am Randolph Glyde, and I say leoht!”

The light flamed at his shout, rolling outward like silent thunder, a wave of green and yellow dappled sunshine, life in the dead land. It lit the castle, making the silvery not-there walls solid stone, sending the fen-weed man-things scrambling backwards in a chorus of yelps and howls. Randolph had just time to see Saul staring at him, face slack with astonishment and fear, before it faded away.

“Randolph?” Saul whispered. “Did it not work?”

Randolph grabbed his hand again. “That kind of light is a gift. If you want it to last, we have to make our own.”

“Uh.” Saul sounded tremulous. “I can see something. A bit. Like silver.”

Randolph would be amazed if he couldn’t. The castle walls were blazing in his own eyes from the power he’d called upon, towering in their strength. “That’s all right.”

“What about her?” Saul said hoarsely.

Randolph turned, fast, and saw. A woman’s shape, walking towards them. She was made of silver and shadow, with curved lips, smiling eyes, hair cropped in the wartime style.

“Theresa?”

“Ran,” she said, or at least her lips moved and the sound whispered around him. “Dearest. Walker, indeed.”

“I had to. There’s nobody else left. I’m sorry.”

Theresa’s form rippled like a silk scarf in the wind. “You are not the Walker.”

“I know,” Randolph said desperately. She was already fading, too fast, her eyes holes in the night. “Stay with me, Tee.”

“They’re coming back,” Saul said by his side. “Randolph? I can hear them. The things are coming back.”

“Ran...” Theresa was a whisper on the wind, her form visibly dissipating.

“Leoht.” He directed it at Theresa, ignoring the creatures clawing at the walls. The billow of light washed over her and left her solid. “Talk to me!”

“You are not the Walker,” Theresa said again.

“I know, damn it! Tell me how to be!”

Theresa shook her head. “Not with the Words. You can’t carry it all. It’s a little arrogant to try.”

“Then what?” Randolph could feel the pressure outside the walls. Not just the creatures, but a rising force, malignant, angry, very old, and very wronged. He suspected he knew what that was, or had been. “Who else is there?”

Theresa turned to Saul.

“No,” Randolph said. “No. You cannot—”

“You cannot.” Theresa was speaking to him, but her silver gaze was on Saul. “The veil is too thin. The defences are falling. The Moat needs a Walker. He drank.”

“Not him,” Randolph said urgently. “Don’t. Please.”

“Soldier?” She raised her arm, pointing one finger to Saul in a deliberate mimicry of the famous poster. “Your country needs you.”

Saul looked as unlike a soldier as any man alive, naked under Randolph’s jacket, but his back was straight. “What do you want me to do?”

“Wait,” Randolph said. “At least he should understand—”

“No time. No choice. Your permission?” she asked Saul.

His eyes flickered to Randolph, and back to Theresa. “Yes, ma’am.”

Theresa smiled, that glorious mischievous smile Randolph had missed so much. She was a translucent silver ghost, and her smile hadn’t changed a bit. She took Saul’s face in her hands, floated forward, and kissed him. He made a single startled noise.

“Leoht,” Randolph said savagely, bracing his feet on the earth, locking his knees. His shoulders ached with the old familiar pain as he called the light again and again, so that it barely faltered between waves. “Leoht.”