Trees murmur, it is their natural way, but when aggrieved they tense from root and shout from bark. Clyde could hear them, and some of the pines at the outer edge of the forest were sensing his approach. With it they became quiet and watched the man and his stranger as they came from distance and towards them with intent.

Risen fields were to their left, banking into an uneven shabbiness as they bordered the forest. A rough and unused clearing through the pines appeared to be the route from what Rubus could gauge of Clyde’s approach.

Some paces ahead, Clyde stopped and turned his head to the right. Keeping near to the forest was a lone woman making pace toward them. She wore a long coat, which by the way it fell noted her as armed with a rifle by both men. Rubus drew his right hand inside his coat and waited for faint signs to draw. The woman continued, moving keenly over the land as one quick to labour. Clyde looked over his shoulder at Rubus and raised a hand that he should hold.

‘It is Christopher’s sister,’ he said and although Rubus loosened his hold over the rifle, he came to a stand next to him and pressed on just how Clyde knew this woman was a sister to the blighted man.

‘Because as I perceive her approach, it is,’ he told him. ‘You would say not?’

Rubus watched her. She was still at range, but it was now clear that they had each other’s attention and in a short time they were met with her. Rubus held ready as the woman reached them with some urgency of breath. She looked worn, her body caught in a grief that had called her to action.

‘You are his sister?’ asked Rubus, and although she did not deny it, she did look at them puzzled.

‘You know of me?’ she asked, and Rubus shook his head and pointed a finger at Clyde.

‘Not a word of you in the details,’ he said. ‘But Clyde has you marked. What is your name and why have we not heard about you?’

She took a pause then and nodded.

‘I am Sophia and Christopher is my younger brother. You have not heard of me because no one took all of this seriously until it was too late for him. It has since been considered prudent to keep my interests at bay.’

Clyde looked upon her and the demon scuttled up his back and onto his shoulder.

‘It is not too late for him,’ he told her. ‘But we are at haste. You may join us, but your burden is your own.’

Sophia nodded, once and with finality.

‘I am armed,’ she said and Clyde leaned a little closer to her.

‘Yes, you are, but not like my brother Rubus here is. Be very careful.’

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Clyde went ahead then, toward the rough break in the trees. Rubus’ face was grave, but he understood and offered a hand that they both should follow. Sophia tracked ahead and Rubus turned to look over the town. He made fast but fine checks for followers and having spied none opened his hands in front of him.

‘May You be with us, Elohim, and grant us,’ he said and gently closed his hands before he was gone from the spot, all three of them quickly gathered and away from view, into a rough route around tall pines. It became quiet and the ground foliage ever more dotted and breathy for light. They went ahead in single file, and after an acre or so Sophia turned back to Rubus.

‘There is a track some distance to our left,’ she said and pointed. ‘Quicker going.’

Rubus looked in the direction that she drew attention to. He pointed to Clyde then and looked at her.

‘He is going that way,’ he told her. ‘He is at work now, you see, so we will go his way.’

…

Clyde had begun mumbling in the old dialect of Vaudeville, the language from before the island had been grafted the name it held today, and the language that was considered slanderous in places now of pleasant prosperity and marked as not to be aired lightly in monastic caverns. Clyde aired it under grace, from somewhere unknown to his body, by some door of great hinge; deep and slow with muttering. The pines felt it as the sounds of old masters, and it eased them, lifting their spirits and ushering them slowly to the left, which they tracked, while each to their branch, the trees kept watch over any parties which might yet try to follow and take advantage. But the group continued slowly beneath the pines without scent of incident, turning on small windings until Clyde turned to a sharper left and lowered his head to clear a low branch and follow his new direction.

‘Now to the track,’ Rubus said, and Sophia continued without question. There was still light in the day for them to reach it, she thought, and even thereafter enough for them to reach the clearing at the southern edge of the plane; a shelf beneath the shear mountain above.

That had been where she had herself encountered Christopher six nights before in a desperate search for him, and from which discovery she had survived. She had seen him close and as such had been close too with the two creatures which came in terror with him. She would carry her burden or die with him tonight, she knew, and was suddenly secretive about the truth of that with the brooding monk close by. He was still speaking in a strange tongue, with a tone which she considered off as she caught moments in his voice, if that sound was his voice. The pines felt close to her then and she wanted to reach the track, as if the forest floor were caught in spores.

Rubus felt that time was closing around, that this corner of the world was preparing for weight. It would not be his own, he thought, and so went onwards in good step and keen awareness for his brother; there would be liturgical duties to attend to at some sudden point and he never liked to miss a signal or be asked twice. The track appeared through broken trees ahead and Clyde took it, continuing along cleared path in dogged dialect, back and forth now with scattered trees, their words carried branch to branch as to be an ongoing stretch of speech to Clyde, one that arrived ahead of him and continued behind. At its centre Clyde could discern a raucous panic that unliving things were on the loose ahead of him, and amongst those were astonished calls that this monk himself carried a demon. Understanding them, the demon took enjoyment in those calls as much as Clyde did. He was on his master’s left shoulder and becoming excited to gaze upon those much murmured unliving.

The track rose and wound over a steadily graded hectare to the right before the pines began to break from uniformity and long-settled rocks started to fill their place. Outpourings of grasses appeared along with the swaying last light of day, illuminating across the opening plane and dancing over rockfall and red pine. Ahead was the opening to the plain itself, the last great space against the far peak of the mountain, its face sheared in bright stone and pale twilight.

‘Where the plain evens out, that is a good place to begin,’ said Clyde, a little distance ahead and really only half spoken to his company. Rubus picked up the tone and made sudden strides to meet him. Sophia reached within herself for her brother then, placing trust in what was before her while the two men shared quiet words into which she did not pry but prepare. Her heart had been under despair for a season and she had long called into the heavens for some order of justice, but as she watched Rubus and Clyde communicate she was gladdened; they made pace as though on the attack. She dared to believe it might be so, and knew she must in order to get through the night before her.