Harlow awoke suddenly. He felt rather like he’d taken a short fall, and experienced a distinct sense of disorientation. The last thing he could remember he had been feasting on roast mutton while sitting in a bath alongside Mr. Gates on the roof of Wingham Manor, while Fanny Howard stood daintily on the top of a nearby tree, laughing and calling out his name.

Right, yes. No mutton, no bath. Harlow was lying on a prickly length of ground that had looked luxuriously comfortable when he collapsed on it after sunset. Everything was darkish, the light of the half moon breaking through the treetops in phantom rays and wild shadows.

Had someone been calling his name? Was Harlow alone? Right, Gates must still be around somewhere. Where the devil was the dratted blighter, anyway?

Harlow looked about him. No sign of Gates. There was the man’s bag, though, propped against the tree Harlow had been sleeping under. And there was Harlow’s hunting sword and fowling piece. What was it about those two objects? Right, yes. Gate’s wouldn’t let Harlow have them before. Well, Gate’s wasn’t around at the moment. Harlow yawned and wondered distantly whether it was worth bothering to get up and go take possession of them.

A noise. Why would there be a noise? It was such a quiet wood. Harlow realized that his eyes had faded shut again. With an effort, he propped himself up on his elbows and reopened his eyes.

What was Harlow looking at? Two red spots? No, four. Four little red embers peering out from the brush like terrible eyes.

Harlow looked at the eyes. The eyes looked back. Dash it all, they were eyes! Harlow sat up with a jolt, wide awake now. The eyes seem to stir. Then slowly, a dark shape seemed to form about one pair, then another.

Two great, dark animals emerged from the wild scatter of shadows into the full light of the moon, each shaggy and black as the very soul of the Devil himself. And the eyes! Eyes that burned red from within! Eyes with their own light and fire that bore down on Harlow with a savage look of death.

In an instant, Harlow was certain of one fact in a way that he had never been certain of anything before: He was about to die.

Unless he did something quickly, that is. Seconds suddenly turned to minutes. There in front of him were the wolves, already advancing. There to his right were his weapons.

Harlow rolled to his feet as the wolves howled. There was the gun. The wolves leaped forward. There was the stock in his shoulder now. The wolves were nearly on him. There, there was the trigger!

The world exploded in a flash and bang that left Harlow blinded by a great purple haze before his eyes. There was a terrible howl and scuffle which he could not see. Frantically he switch his grip to the barrel, ready to bludgeon with his gun butt the first thing that came near him.

Silence. Then there was a faint rustle in the trees somewhere. Harlow stood blind, peering out into the darkness, his vision momentarily shattered by the muzzle flash.

“Barnstabrake!”

“Gates?”

“Well done, Barnstabrake! That’s one down and one run off. What are you looking about for?”

“I can’t see!”

“Eh? Oh right. It might have been better to shut your eyes or something just as you pulled the trigger, you know. Splendid way to spoil the old night eyes. Give it a few moments.”

“Are the wolves still around?”

“One of them is, yes, only it won’t ever be leaving either. The other one ran off, though I’m not sure if it got away unscathed. I think the buckshot got them both. That took them by surprise, I think. They’re probably not all that used to guns, and don’t know how to properly handle a man with one.”

“What do you mean? They’re just wolves. I mean, aren’t they?”

“Not of the ordinary sort, I think. Didn’t you see the eyes?”

“Well then, if they aren’t wolves what are they?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I think I can guess. Can you see yet?”

“Nearly, I think.”

“Good, come have a look.”

Gates was crouched down beside the contorted body of the dead wolf. It’s jaws were open wide in a horrible grimace, the fangs nearly glowing in the reflected moonlight. Several dark craters in the animal’s head and breast were oozing blood. The creature was of prodigious size, and had it been even a little farther away when he had fired Harlow doubted that his slight fowling piece would have had much impression on it. And even in death, the wide eyes still glowed faintly with an eerie red.

“What on earth is it?”

“Could be any number of breeds. All foreign though. This creature was most definitely imported, recently I would suspect.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Impossible to say, but I think I could make a reasonable guess. However, that’s not really all that important right now.”

“The real question being why it’s here?”

“Exactly, and who brought it. You’re getting better, Mr. Barnstabrake.”

“But why bring such a thing to Potham?”

“To do the bidding of the master that brought them, why else?”

“What bidding?”

“Terror, I should imagine. And of course mundane things, scouting and so forth. That’s probably their main work, given the tracks we’ve been following. I’m certainly glad I spotted them in time.”

“Eh?”

“I was up a tree, keeping watch. It’s a good moon tonight, and I saw them coming. I called down to you as loudly as I dared, I’m glad I managed to wake you in time. Come on!”

“What?”

“Do I have to spell out everything for you? We’ve got a wolf to follow, one that is probably wounded. Aha, see! Blood along the tracks. We’ve not a moment to lose!”

“Why?”

“Because the wolf (George, do you suppose?) is probably returning to its master, that’s why. And in it’s condition it will likely be leaving a splendid trail. Give me the satchel there! Oh, and by the way, you can take your weapons now. I think you will be needing them soon.”

Not a moment later Harlow was trailing madly behind a seemingly possessed Mr. Gates as the latter followed a trail of broken and bloodied underbrush deep into the riotous shadows of the moonlit forest.

It was not long after, somewhere in a place removed from the whole of the world as the people of Potham knew it, that Fanny awoke.

Her eyes opened to a warm humid air bearing a curiously earthy scent. She felt a horrible ache in her legs and sting in her ankles, and her body was soaking wet.

She looked about her surroundings as her mind gradually became adjusted to wakefulness. She was in a dim chamber lit with several guttering candles stuck into earthen walls on small twigs. The entire room was dug out of the living earth with many sinuous roots poking through the walls, floor, and ceiling. It was very damp, and Fanny’s saturated nightgown clung to her body like a second layer of skin.

She was lying with her back to one of the walls. All about various objects were strewn. Barrels, crates, sacks. Most of them appeared to contain grain, ale, and other foodstuffs. There were no tools, though, as Fanny noted with dismay, as she had also discovered that her ankles were tied together with stout twine. To one side was a small, irregularly shaped door, which was closed tightly.

And nearly directly above her, looking down from a sort of hole in the sloped earthen wall, was a small, brown, knobby face.

Fanny looked into the face for a moment, not daring to think what she was seeing. It stared back with dark inscrutable eyes.

Suddenly, the face parted into a wicked looking smile, and the creature spoke.

“Shabang Shabaz! Look and see, the human wakes! Arise, Eveling, and mind yer manners, tee hee!”

“Ho ho, ha ha! She wakes, she wakes!”

“Fetch ye the King, we shall present the Eveling to him.”

“Hey hey, ho ho!!”

The face disappeared and slammed a small round wooden shutter over the hole in the wall.

There was a sound of scampering and clamour of creaky high pitched voices. Then, with a painful creak the door was unlatched and flung wide, and a strident voice announced:

“Hail to Brickus Brackus Brungus the Ninth! All hail and all respect! May the soles of his shoes never fail, and his nose the light of day never burn!”

All hail His Dreadful Majesty, the King of the Kobalds!”