seeing at the edge of his vision, a wavering blue glow, was a torch. A man stood on the hill, a black shape against a blacker background. He held the torch in his right hand. In his left was a gun.
Christian acted without thought. Because the man was on his right, Christian swerved to the left and crashed into the river. It was deeper than it looked. In three lunging steps, he was up to his knees. In moments he had lost all sensation in his feet.
He ran on, and the ground dropped away, and he plunged in up to his crotch and cried out at the shock of the cold. His breath was fast and short. A few desperate steps later, he fell and all but went under. He struggled against the current, had not expected it to be so strong.
The boy was halfway across when he saw the dolmen. A plate of gray stone, as big as the roof of a garage, stood on six tilting, crooked rocks. Beneath the roof of gray stone, in the center of the covered area, was an ancient, uneven altar stone, with a girl in a white nightdress sleeping peacefully upon it. The sight of her terrified him, but fear of his pursuers drove him on. Fallows had moved out from beneath the darkness of the trees. He was already up to his ankles in the river, having removed his shoes before stepping into the water. While the boy had stumbled, sunk, and half drowned, somehow Fallows knew just where to step so he was never more than shin-deep.
The water along the bank was hip-high, and Christian grabbed at handfuls of slippery grass to pull himself up. The murder-weed hissed “poison, poison!” at him and came out in clumps and dropped him back into the river, and he went up to his neck and exploded into sobs of frustration. He threw himself at the bank again and kicked and squirmed in the dirt like an animal—a pig, trying to struggle out of a mire—and floundered onto dry land. He did not pause but ran beneath the dolmen.
It was at the edge of a grassy meadow, the nearest line of trees hundreds of feet away, and Christian understood that if he tried to make it to the forest, Fallows would easily pick him off with the rifle. Also, he was shaking and exhausted. He thought desperately he might hide and reason with Fallows. He had never shot a thing. He was an innocent in this. He felt sure that Fallows had killed the others as much for what they had done as for what they had intended to do. The unfairness of it raked at him. Fallows had killed, too. The lion!
He ducked behind one of the standing stones and sat and hugged his knees to his chest and tried not to sob.
From his ridiculous hiding place, Christian could see the child. Her golden hair was shoulder length and looked recently brushed. She held a bouquet of buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace to her chest. Everything Christian had seen in this place was dead or dying, but those flowers looked as fresh as if they’d just been picked. She might’ve been nine and had the sweet pink complexion of health.
Firelight cast a shifting blue glow across the dolmen as Fallows approached.
“Have you ever seen a more trusting face?” Fallows asked softly.
He stepped into view, the gun in one hand, the torch in the other. He had collected Christian’s drawing pad and carried it under one arm. He did not look at Christian but instead sat on the edge of the stone, beside the sleeper. He gazed upon her like one inspired.
Fallows set down the sketchbook. From inside his camouflage coat, he produced a small glass bottle, and another, and a third. There were five in all. He unscrewed the black top of the first and held it to the little girl’s lips, although it was empty, or seemed empty.
“This world’s been holding its breath for a long time, Christian,” Fallows said. “But now it can breathe again.” He unscrewed the next and raised it to her mouth.
“Breath?” the boy whispered.
“The breath of kings,” Fallows agreed, with a mild nod. “Their dying breaths. Breath of the lion and the elephant, the leopard and the buffalo, and the great rhino. It will counteract the work of the poisoner, General Gorm, and wake her and wake the world with it.”