Page 57 of The Wulver's Bond
Moss felt the busy commotion of the ravine as they came closer to it. It was louder down there, crammed with a greater diversity of life. He reached out in greeting and the willows welcomed him home.
An odd silhouette marked the horizon. An empty off-road vehicle, parked at the mouth of the steep slope where Moss and Arran would usually enter the ravine. Moss started to point it out, to find Arran had already stopped.
‘I see it,’ Arran said, his whole body tensing. He pulled Moss behind him and sniffed the air. ‘I smell—’
A soft whistle of air, followed by athunk.
‘Smell what?’ Moss asked, nervously spinning for the source of the noise. ‘Smell what, Arran?’
In front of him, Arran’s body folded onto his knees. And then his stomach. Face down on the ground.
Cold horror plunged into Moss’s heart. He stared mutely at Arran’s body, caught in a trance of shock.
‘Got the bastard!’ whooped a voice from his nightmares.
Like a hulking monster, Logan stepped out of his hiding spot among the heather. He held a crossbow in one hand. Elsie’s crossbow.
And protruding from Arran’s head, the silver-tipped bolt.
Logan bounded up to Moss, waving the crossbow like he was an old friend. A wrist brace covered the forearm of his off-hand. ‘Got ’imgood,didn’t I? Eh, Weed? How’d you likethat!’
Moss snapped back into fury. His vengeance was instant and unmerciful. Pale grass roots exploded from the ground, wrapping around his fist to form a hardened glove covered in evil spikes. Logan dropped the crossbow and stumbled back as Moss charged at him, aiming a killing blow for the monster’s skull.
Moss’s fist hit a wall in thin air. It knocked the wind from him, sent Moss flying onto his ass. He shook pain out of his wrist, gasping for breath.
Logan looked down on him with dumb surprise. Slowly, his brutish features shifted into a cruel grin.
‘I killed ’im, didn’t I? Does that mean I get to own you now, Weed? Eh? Am I your new master?’ Logan aimed his boot at Moss’s head.
Moss caught it with another flurry of roots and rolled away. Panic fizzed in his chest. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. Arran couldn’t be dead. Logan couldn’t own him.
Moss would rather die.
‘Stop right there!’ Logan bellowed.
To his everlasting horror, Moss stopped.
‘Now stand the fuck up.’
Moss stood up.
Logan looked him up and down, sneering at his frock coat and comfortable clothes. ‘Tell me I’m your master.’
‘You’re my master,’ Moss said, going completely cold inside. His fear was numbing. His eyes kept flitting to Arran, expecting him to sit up in the next second.
Logan’s grin widened. ‘Fucking right.’ He picked up the crossbow and pointed it at Arran. ‘Get him in the truck.’
Tears bled down Moss’s cheeks. He couldn’t disobey. He summoned his roots to carefully lift Arran’s body and placed him as gently as possible in the open cargo bed of Logan’s truck. Logan chucked a dirty tarp over him.
‘All right, let’s go!’ Logan moved to the driver’s side, then looked back on seeing Moss hadn’t moved. Hewouldn’tmove, not if there was even the slightest leeway.
Logan didn’t give him any. ‘I saidmove,you fuckin’ weed! Get in the truck!’
His legs followed the order. His soul crumpled to nothing. In Logan’s shadow he was Weed again. Dirty, insignificant Weed, trapped in the old never-ending, godforsaken nightmare.
He stared blankly forward while Logan started the engine.
Arran’s corpse swam across his vision, dominating his mind.
