The Grey King by Susan Cooper

white-haired boy said bleakly, “It’s swinging to the north. That is the worst wind of all, the north wind. Gwynt Traed yr Meirw, they call it, the wind that blows round the feet of the dead. It brings storms. And worse, sometimes.”
    The distant crackling of the fire seemed louder now. Will glanced over his shoulder, down the hill; the smoke was thicker there, and he felt more heat in the air. The wind whirled in gusts, catching up cinders and soot from below into strange dark eddies round their heads. All at once Will knew with dreadful certainty that the Grey King was aware of him, precisely aware, gathering his power for attack—and that it was at that first moment of awareness that the fire on the mountain had begun. He flinched in a sudden sense of fearful loneliness. An Old One, alone without others of the Light, was vulnerable to the Dark at its strongest. Though he could not be destroyed for all time, yet he could be disarmed; the full power of a Lord of the Dark could, if it struck him defenceless, blast him out of Time for so great a space that he could be of no help to his fellows until too late. So the Grey King struck now at Will with fire, and with all else that might be at his command.
    And Bran was more vulnerable yet. Will swung back quickly. “Bran, come on, along the ridge to the top. Before the fire—”
    His voice died in his throat. Silently on to the ridge round them, out of holes and crevices, round corners and crags, came slinking the grey-white ghostly shapes of the milgwn, more than a score of them: heads held low, teeth grinning, a white tip glimmering on each stiffly-held grey bushy tail. Their foxy smell was in the air stronger than the smoke. At their head stood the kingfox, their leader, red tongue lolling from a mouth set in a wide dreadful grin, its white teeth long as fingers and sharp as nails, icicles of bone. The eyes were bright; the ruff stood out white round the huge shoulders and neck.
    Will clenched his fists, shouting angry words of power in the Old Speech, but the great grey fox did not flinch. Instead it made a sudden sharp leap into the air, straight up on the one spot, as Will had once seen a fox do in a Buckinghamshire field, far away from this valley, to discover what danger lurked in a field of wheat higher than its head. As it jumped, the king fox gave one short, sharp bark, deep and clear. The milgwn snarled low. And an abrupt whoof of flame shot up at Will’s side with a sound like tearing cloth, as the fire on the mountain burst at last on the ridge of Craig yr Aderyn and roared crackling round them in the bracken.
    Will shrank back. There was no way of escape but past the king fox. And the big fox crouched motionless, low on its belly, tensing itself to spring.
    There was a sudden piercing yell at Will’s shoulder. Bran leapt forward, waving in his hand a crooked branch of scrub oak blazing like tinder, a sheaf of flame; he thrust it full into the grey fox’s face. Screaming, the animal fell back amongst its fellows, and the foxes milled in confusion. Before the branch could burn down to his arm, Bran flung it aside. But unexpectedly, caught by a gust of wind, it fell over the opposite side of the ridge, down towards the unburned slope. Out it went and over the edge, and down to the far side of the Craig where the fire might not otherwise have gone. There was a gasp of flame as the fire took hold on its new prey. Bran wailed in horror.
    â€œWill! I’ve been and sent the fire down to Prichard’s Farm—we’re cut off both ways!”
    â€œThe top!” Will called urgently. “We must get to the top!” With all the certainty of ancient instincts he knew the place they must find; it had begun compellingly to call to him, unseen, waking to his quest. He knew what it would look like; he knew what he must do when they reached it. But the reaching was another matter. Flames crackled at either side of them,