Solomon Kane by Ramsey Campbell Page A

largely intact. In a moment he realised that the corpse was not alone. A child clung to it, her face against the dead breast, and she had just stirred, however slightly. Meredith murmured words too soft for Kane to hear and touched the child’s shoulder.
    The girl raised her face, which was rounded and plump, grubby with soot and gap-toothed. She appeared to be about eight years old. She wore a cap like Meredith’s, but it was discoloured with smoke. For a moment she gazed up at Meredith as if she hardly knew where they were or who she was herself. Then awareness seemed to flood her eyes, and she screamed at the top of her voice, sending crows flapping into the air all around the village. “The witch is here!” she cried. “The witch!”

FOURTEEN

    “K eep the fire well stoked, Edward,” his father said. “We must keep the shadows at bay tonight.”
    Kane wondered if he meant to speak of evil or just to reassure. They had left the ruined village as far behind as they had been able to travel before the night overtook them. Even Edward had despaired of the task of burying the villagers in the hours of daylight that remained, but he had insisted that each corpse should be protected by a cross composed of sticks taken from the pyre. Now the family and their companions were camped in a glade within a natural grove at some distance from the road. No doubt William had chosen the location because it gave them cover, but Kane doubted that it would conceal them from the destroyer of the village if it should come to find them.
    He felt as though some aspect of the blackness that had overwhelmed the village had already followed them. Perhaps it was observing them from beyond the trees, where he heard the occasional flutter as if the night were a nest. He stayed close to the trees, alert for any hint of an approach out of the darkness, while the Crowthorns gathered about the child. She was seated between Meredith and Katherine, wrapped in a blanket and drinking from a bowl of broth. The women were intent on her needs, while Samuel watched her with allthe curiosity of youth, but it was William who uttered the question that concern for her state had left unspoken till now. “Can you tell us what happened, child?” he said.
    The firelight trembled, and a swarm of shadows blurred the child’s face. “Let the poor girl be, William,” his wife said.
    The girl took a last sip and lowered the bowl. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she gazed up at William. She looked like a child in the bosom of her own family now that Katherine had bathed away the soot and grime. “They tried to burn a witch,” she said.
    The flames in the midst of the clearing seemed to leap up at her words. As the light flickered over the edge of the glade, the trees appeared to inch stealthily forward, closing in. Though the girl’s voice was stronger and steadier than Kane would have expected, Katherine and Meredith moved closer to support her. “People came to watch her die,” she said.
    Kane heard a twig snap. It was in the fire, but it sounded too much like a hint of the presence of an intruder. He felt as if the girl’s words were attracting what they named, and he wished that William had refrained from questioning her while it was dark. For herself, she seemed untroubled by the darkness. “The flames didn’t hurt her,” she said, and the fire touched off a reminiscence of them in her eyes. “She came down from the stake and said now all the Devil’s children were free to walk the earth.”
    Shadows shifted restlessly among the trees, where Kane could have thought the diabolical army she had conjured up was massing. Even if he was able to master his fancies, he still had a sense of evil looming somewhere close by in the dark. “Then she killed everyone who came to watch,” the girl said. “She burned out all their eyes because they did.”
    As Meredith and Katherine each put an arm around her, Samuel said “Didn’t you?”
    “Hush,