Hadn’t it seen, hadn’t it heard the warning?
Unless-
Oh God in Heaven.
– Unless Coot had been wrong. Unless it was only a stone he held in his hand, a useless, meaningless lump of stone.
Then a pair of hands grabbed him around the neck.
The lunatic.
A low voice spat the word Tucker’ in his ear.
Ron watched Rawhead approaching, heard the lunatic screeching now: ‘Here he is. Fetch him. Kill him. Here he is.’
Without warning the grip slackened, and Ron half-turned to see Ivanhoe dragging the lunatic back against the Church wall. The mouth in the Verger’s broken face continued to screech.
‘He’s here! Here!
Ron looked back at Rawhead: the beast was almost on him, and he was too slow to raise the stone in self-defence. But Rawhead had no intention of taking him. It was Declan he was smelling and hearing. Ivanhoe released Declan as Rawhead’s huge hands veered past Ron and fumbled for the lunatic. What followed was unwatchable. Ron couldn’t bear to see the hands take Declan apart: but he heard the gabble of pleas become whoops of disbelieving grief. When he next looked round there was nothing recognisably human on ground or wall –
– And Rawhead was coming for him now, coming to do the same or worse. The huge head craned round to fix on Ron, its maw gaping, and Ron saw how the fire had wounded Rawhead. The beast had been careless in the enthusiasm for destruction: fire had caught its face and upper torso. Its body hair was crisped, its mane was stubble, and the flesh on the left hand side of its face was black and blistered. The flames had roasted its eyeballs, they were swimming in a gum of mucus and tears. That was why it had followed Declan’s voice and bypassed Ron; it could scarcely see.
But it must see now. It must.
‘Here . . . here . . .’ said Ron, ‘Here I am!’ Rawhead heard. He looked without seeing, his eyes trying to focus.
‘Here! I’m here!’
Rawhead growled in his chest. His burned face pained him; he wanted to be away from here, away in the cool of a birch-thicket, moon-washed.
His dimmed eyes found the stone; the homo sapien was nursing it like a baby. It was difficult for Rawhead to see clearly, but he knew. It ached in his mind, that image. It pricked him, it teased him.
It was just a symbol of course, a sign of the power, not the power itself, but his mind made no such distinction. To him the stone was the thing he feared most: the bleeding woman, her gaping hole eating seed and spitting children. It was life, that hole, that woman, it was endless fecundity. It terrified him.
Rawhead stepped back, his own shit running freely down his leg. The fear on his face gave Ron strength. He pressed home his advantage, closing in after the retreating beast, dimly aware that Ivanhoe was rallying allies around him, armed figures waiting at the corners of his vision, eager to bring the fire-raiser down.
His own strength was failing him. The stone, lifted high above
his head so Rawhead could see it plainly, seemed heavier by the moment.
‘Go on,’ he said quietly to the gathering Zealots. ‘Go on, take him. Take him . .’
They began to close in, even before he finished speaking.
Rawhead smelt them more than saw them: his hurting eyes were fixed on the woman.
His teeth slid from their sheaths in preparation for the attack. The stench of humanity closed in around him from every direction.
Panic overcame his superstitions for one moment and he snatched down towards Ron, steeling himself against the stone. The attack took Ron by surprise. The claws sank in his scalp, blood poured down over his face.
Then the crowd closed in. Human hands, weak, white human hands were laid on Rawhead’s body. Fists beat on his spine, nails raked his skin.
He let Ron go as somebody took a knife to the backs of his legs and hamstrung him. The agony made him howl the sky down, or so it seemed. In Rawhead’s roasted eyes the stars reeled as he fell backwards on to the road, his back cracking under him. They took the advantage immediately, overpowering him by sheer weight of numbers. He snapped off a finger here, a face there, but they would not be stopped now. Their hatred was old; in their bones, did they but know it.