But he closed the door behind him and we heard the key turning in the lock once more.
‘Well, it was worth a try,’ said Alice. ‘Wonder how many abhumans there are … Wonder if all the rest are like him and Tusk …’
Tusk was the son of Old Mother Malkin, an abhuman with big teeth – too many to fit into his mouth, hence his name. The Spook had killed him with his staff, stabbing him through the forehead.
Just how many abhumans had the Fiend fathered? That was an interesting question. Tusk was evil. He’d helped Mother Malkin kill mothers and their babies – that was how the witch had got her name. She’d run a home for destitute mothers. But lots of them had gone missing, and when the locals had finally summoned the courage to investigate, they’d found a field full of bones. Most of the women had been crushed to death, their ribs cracked and broken – that had been the work of Tusk. Abhumans were incredibly strong and Horn looked very dangerous.
‘No use denying it,’ Alice went on. ‘I shared the same father as Tusk too, but I never considered him my half-brother for a moment.’
‘Horn doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad as Tusk. I think he’s had a hard time,’ I said.
‘That’s certainly true,’ said Adriana. ‘Stanton is cruel to him, but I don’t understand why he remains so loyal to Lord Barrule. Can’t he see that his master permits Stanton to do that? Some people say Horn’s loyal because Barrule lets him be the buggane’s keeper.’
‘His keeper?’ I asked.
‘Horn works with the buggane, they say. He helps it choose its victims …’
The night passed quickly, and long before dawn there were three other prisoners sharing the cell with us: two were refugees from the County, young girls still in their teens; the other was an older local woman.
Adriana wasted no time in explaining how you could wedge yourself in the barrel. The two girls from the County listened to her with interest but the local woman just started to cry. She’d heard too many tales about what she faced. The idea of being fed to the buggane terrified her so much that she almost preferred the prospect of being spiked.
Just before dawn the guards – a couple of dozen of them – came for us and dragged us back down the tower steps and across the village, heading south. Adriana accompanied us – evidently Barrule had run out of patience with her. Then they forced us up a big hill, which must have been Slieau Whallian. It was a long steep climb. Were they going to roll us down this? If so, we surely had little chance of survival.
To the east the sky was beginning to redden while, low on the horizon, a single bright star was visible. There was no wind and the air was chilly, and we stood there shivering next to a row of big barrels. A line of torches on poles went down the hill, marking the course that the barrels would take, but they weren’t needed – there was already plenty of light to see by. Most of the guards waited with us at the summit. At the bottom, at the edge of a big wood, we could see only six men; one had a sword at his belt, and I guessed it was probably Stanton, the commander of the yeomen who’d arrested us.
‘She’s first!’ cried one of the guards, pointing at the older woman; as they seized her, she began to sob hysterically, her whole body shaking and trembling.
‘Cowards!’ Adriana exclaimed angrily, shaking her fist at the men. ‘How can you do that to a woman – and one of our own islanders too?’
‘Keep your mouth shut or we’ll gag you!’ the largest of the yeomen shouted back. Another seized her by the shoulder, but she shook him off.
The barrel was now in position, ready to be rolled; when they lifted off the lid I saw the sharp spikes within. Immediately I felt that Adriana had been optimistic about our chances of survival. How could you wedge yourself safely into that?
They forced the woman to her knees in front of the barrel. ‘Right! In you get!’
She stared at the spikes, her face twisted in horror, certain that she was looking at her own death.
‘It’ll be all the worse for you if we have to push you in!’ the guard threatened, his voice harsh.
The woman responded by crawling in, crying out as the sharp spikes pierced her flesh. Once she was inside, they put the lid back on and fixed it in place with just two nails.
Rap! Tap!
One push, and the barrel set off, rolling down the hill. The yeomen had worked really fast, I reflected, worried now. You’d have only a few seconds to wedge yourself into position.
Three terrible shrieks issued from the barrel before it reached the bottom and came to rest hard against a tree trunk. Two men approached it, one carrying a crowbar. There was a grating, crunching sound as he prised off the lid.
We were too far away to see clearly, but when they pulled the woman out of the barrel, she didn’t seem to be moving. They threw her body aside like a sack of potatoes.
‘This one’s dead! Send down the next!’ Commander Stanton called up the hill.
The two County girls were weeping and trembling; they’d been holding hands, but now, as the guards approached, they clung tightly to each other and had to be dragged apart.
I watched, horrified, as the first of them received the same treatment, the poor girl shrieking and struggling as she was thrust inside. This time the barrel hit a rock on the way down and left the ground briefly, coming down again with a crash. When it came to a stop, the guards pulled the girl’s body out and threw it down next to the other one.
I was appalled by what had just happened and my heart was pounding with fear. Was it really possible to wedge yourself in and survive?
But the third woman to be ‘tested’ was still alive when she reached the bottom of the hill. As two of the yeomen led her away, I could hear her sobbing and gasping. She was clearly hurt, but at least she had survived. So it was possible …
Adriana turned back to face Alice and me. Her bottom lip was trembling and her former courage had suddenly deserted her; she looked terrified. ‘Can you sense when you’re about to die?’ she asked. ‘Because that’s how I feel now – as if I don’t have long for this world …’
‘My master doesn’t believe in that,’ I told her. ‘He doesn’t think anyone can foretell their own death.’
‘But I feel it so strongly,’ she sobbed. ‘I sense that it’s coming very soon!’
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. ‘You’ll be all right,’ I reassured her. ‘Just wedge yourself into the barrel like you told us.’