Modern Magick

The Road to Farringale: 9

I do not know how Miranda got down to Gloucester so quickly.

It wasn't that fast, I suppose; not compared to the (relative) ease with which Jay darts about the country. But she arrived a full hour sooner than I'd expected, and she brought approximately half of the Society with her. Soon, those eerily quiet caverns were awash with frantic Society agents racing to save, protect and preserve as much as they could.

The worst discovery was the crude pit that had been dug at the rear of the Enclave. Its aroma first announced its presence; we lifted our noses to the putrid scent of something rotting, and followed the stench.

It proved to consist of lots of somethings rotting. The pit lurked behind a pair of ramshackle, abandoned buildings both leaning dangerously to the left. A narrow track wound in between, and at the rear was the crater: perhaps ten feet deep and eight wide, roughly covered over in tarpaulin in a crude, futile attempt to conceal the horror of its contents. It was a bone pit, and filled nearly to the rim with the half-rotted corpses of dead animals. Most of them had had their flesh roughly stripped from their bones before they were discarded, though by no means expertly. Looking at the mess of bloodied flesh, the pale glint of bone here and there, the thick carpet of maggots crawling with grotesque enthusiasm over the whole, I could imagine the clumsy haste with which each beast had been dispatched to its fate.

They were not all magickal beasts, but too many were. Severed heads and tails and paws, dislocated beaks and feathered crests, claws and teeth, patches of decaying fur — each sad little remnant announced that here lay far too many of the precious creatures we fought so desperately to save.

I wished, too late, that Miranda had been far away when we found that pit. It broke her heart. She stood on the edge of it, shuddering uncontrollably, and looking so near to collapse that I had to steady her.

'How could they?' she gasped. 'How could they do such a thing?'

'Miranda.' I gripped her arm hard, holding her up by sheer force of will if I had to. 'They are sick. Can you understand that? This is not cruelty, it is desperation. They've been eating this much and they are still wasting away. They are starving.'

I don't know if she heard me, or registered the import of my words, for she made no reply. She took a deep, deep breath, mopped her damp cheeks on the sleeve of her jumper, and left me. 'Right,' I heard her calling as she walked away. 'There must be some creatures still alive down here, let's find them! Quickly, please!'

Well and good. Miranda's job was to take care of the animals. I needed to find someone who could help the trolls.

They were already being helped, I soon saw as I trotted gratefully away from that terrible pit. But ineptly. The Society had not yet realised how futile it was to try to communicate with the trolls of Darrowdale; we were too late for that. They needed more direct help, though of what nature, who knew?

A young man in a blue jacket raced past on his way to somewhere; I caught hold of him. 'Did they send any of the medical staff down here? I need to talk to them.' I'd asked for a doctor, but requests and instructions sometimes got a little garbled along the way.

'Uh,' said the boy. 'Foster's here somewhere.' He did not stay to argue the point any longer, but dashed off again.

That was all right. They'd sent Rob, and that was all I needed to know. Robert Foster, with all his might, was also a doctor, a fact I sometimes forgot. I went in search of him, but ran into Jay first.

'I was looking for you,' said Jay. 'We're finished at Darrowdale, they can handle it from here. We need to move on.'

'Yes, but first I have to talk to Robert.'