Chapter Twenty
M oss strode over the Shetland moors like they belonged to him. His joy seeped into the roots beneath his feet, sharing it with all the flora for miles around. They sang back to him, hardy buds and thorns quivering in the wind. The sodden grasses bristled at his approach, sending ripples over the hillsides as he and his Wulver drew nearer to home.
Moss could barely contain himself; he felt larger than he’d ever felt in his human skin. Larger even than when he’d co-existed with Them, not realising just how diminished he’d become under Their barrage of false adulation. Next to Arran, Moss was Himself.
I Am Here, he proclaimed to the heathers and the scurvy grass. I Am This One, heard the sea pinks all the way out on the cliffs and the sandworts far down by the rocky shore.
Moss felt the busy commotion of the ravine as they came closer to it. It was louder down there, crammed with a greater diversity of life. He reached out in greeting and the willows welcomed him home.
An odd silhouette marked the horizon. An empty off-road vehicle, parked at the mouth of the steep slope where Moss and Arran would usually enter the ravine. Moss started to point it out, to find Arran had already stopped.
‘I see it,’ Arran said, his whole body tensing. He pulled Moss behind him and sniffed the air. ‘I smell—’
A soft whistle of air, followed by a thunk .
‘Smell what?’ Moss asked, nervously spinning for the source of the noise. ‘Smell what, Arran?’
In front of him, Arran’s body folded onto his knees. And then his stomach. Face down on the ground.
Cold horror plunged into Moss’s heart. He stared mutely at Arran’s body, caught in a trance of shock.
‘ Got the bastard! ’ whooped a voice from his nightmares.
Like a hulking monster, Logan stepped out of his hiding spot among the heather. He held a crossbow in one hand. Elsie’s crossbow.
And protruding from Arran’s head, the silver-tipped bolt.
Logan bounded up to Moss, waving the crossbow like he was an old friend. A wrist brace covered the forearm of his off-hand. ‘Got ’im good, didn’t I? Eh, Weed? How’d you like that! ’
Moss snapped back into fury. His vengeance was instant and unmerciful. Pale grass roots exploded from the ground, wrapping around his fist to form a hardened glove covered in evil spikes. Logan dropped the crossbow and stumbled back as Moss charged at him, aiming a killing blow for the monster’s skull.
Moss’s fist hit a wall in thin air. It knocked the wind from him, sent Moss flying onto his ass. He shook pain out of his wrist, gasping for breath.
Logan looked down on him with dumb surprise. Slowly, his brutish features shifted into a cruel grin.
‘I killed ’im, didn’t I? Does that mean I get to own you now, Weed? Eh? Am I your new master?’ Logan aimed his boot at Moss’s head.
Moss caught it with another flurry of roots and rolled away. Panic fizzed in his chest. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. Arran couldn’t be dead. Logan couldn’t own him.
Moss would rather die.
‘Stop right there!’ Logan bellowed.
To his everlasting horror, Moss stopped.
‘Now stand the fuck up.’
Moss stood up.
Logan looked him up and down, sneering at his frock coat and comfortable clothes. ‘Tell me I’m your master.’
‘You’re my master,’ Moss said, going completely cold inside. His fear was numbing. His eyes kept flitting to Arran, expecting him to sit up in the next second.
Logan’s grin widened. ‘Fucking right.’ He picked up the crossbow and pointed it at Arran. ‘Get him in the truck.’
Tears bled down Moss’s cheeks. He couldn’t disobey. He summoned his roots to carefully lift Arran’s body and placed him as gently as possible in the open cargo bed of Logan’s truck. Logan chucked a dirty tarp over him.
‘All right, let’s go!’ Logan moved to the driver’s side, then looked back on seeing Moss hadn’t moved. He wouldn’t move, not if there was even the slightest leeway.
Logan didn’t give him any. ‘I said move, you fuckin’ weed! Get in the truck!’
His legs followed the order. His soul crumpled to nothing. In Logan’s shadow he was Weed again. Dirty, insignificant Weed, trapped in the old never-ending, godforsaken nightmare.
He stared blankly forward while Logan started the engine.
Arran’s corpse swam across his vision, dominating his mind.
You told me you could survive being shot in the head. You fucking liar. You fucking liar.
Breathe.
Breathe, Moss.
Moss closed his eyes, letting the air flow in and out of him. The past five minutes had been nothing but irrational panic. The fear wouldn’t let him think. He needed to think.
Logan had used Elsie’s crossbow, with its silver-tipped bolts. Silver didn’t kill Arran, or so he’d said. It just stopped him from healing.
The bolt is still in Arran’s head.
Slowly, Moss reopened his eyes and allowed his whirling vision to refocus on the landscape. The truck bobbed and jolted as Logan manoeuvred it over uneven ground. In the far distance, a single road snaked over the land like a grey river.
‘How did you find us?’ Moss asked, keeping his tone level and cool.
Logan glanced at him. If it were Elsie, she’d have told Moss to shut up. She knew better than to engage with him. But Logan loved a good brag.
‘The radio,’ Logan answered loftily, like he’d done something really clever. ‘I went back to Elsie’s body, see. Got her pack and her crossbow out the hole.’
‘You mean you robbed her grave.’
Logan scowled. ‘She ain’t fucking doing anything with it. Wouldn’t have kept her radio, but I remembered she’d paid extra for some GPS bullshit on it. Couldn’t get it to work… until you switched yours on.’
A part of Moss died. In the truck’s wake, a trail of sturdy bog grasses withered to brown stalks.
Logan was only here because of him.
‘… and I was gonna do it right this time,’ Logan rambled on. Moss realised he’d more or less blacked out for a moment. ‘Today was meant to be recon, just figurin’ out where the fuck you were holed up. Imagine my surprise when you came strolling over the ridge with that mutt right by your side. Couldn’t pass it up, could I?’
Breathe.
I Am Here, Moss reminded himself. I Am Formidable.
The old Weed would have already given up. Accepted this as just the next era of suffering that fate had in store. He was so smothered by despair, too forsaken by hope to see any other options.
But not any more. Moss had chosen his fate, and it was currently lying in the bed of Logan’s truck. He was going to take it back.
‘What are you going to do with the Wulver?’ he said.
‘Gonna skin ’im. Elsie had a buyer lined up for the pelt in Orkney, so that’s where we’re going.’ Logan leered at Moss. ‘Maybe I’ll make you do the dirty bit.’
Moss was so very grateful for Logan’s arrogance and stupidity. Just because he had control of Moss, Logan thought he had nothing to fear from him. He probably knew Moss couldn’t outright hurt him. But, unless instructed otherwise, Moss could certainly thwart him.
Elsie had always been very precise with her commands. And at the start of her ownership, she had laid out a set of rules for Moss to follow. The base commands. Never hurt my companions. Never hinder a hunt. Never keep secrets from me.
Logan was too dense to realise Moss still had a will of his own.
Moss called out to the carpet of grasses surrounding them. He had once, unfairly, called grass stupid. They were slow, yes, and simple, but not stupid.
Nor weak.
They heard his appeal and matted their roots, racing the truck underground. Woven together, their fronds became strong. They dove into the wheel arches of the truck, wrapping around its tyres. The vehicle’s suspension lurched and squealed under the strain.
Logan grunted, grappling with the steering wheel. ‘What the fuck?’
Be quick! Moss urged.
The grass twined into a cord and slipped into the bed of the truck. Moss closed his eyes and helped it feel around Arran’s body. The long shape of his head. The silver bolt.
Moss and the grass heaved. The bolt came free.
Logan leaned out of his window, glaring down at the grass enveloping the wheels. He tore back to Moss and seized him by the throat. ‘Are you doing this, you little shit?’
Internally, Moss smirked. Still not an order.
‘Might be,’ he crooned around Logan’s fist.
Logan smashed his face into the dashboard. Pain split through Moss’s nose and upper lip. He tasted blood in his mouth.
‘Make it stop,’ Logan demanded, pulling Moss’s head back by his hair, ‘or I’ll ruin your pretty fucking face.’
That was Logan all over. To still fall back on violence when a single word would do.
Moss held up his hands, reeling the grass away from the truck. ‘All gone,’ he croaked.
‘Don’t try anything like that again,’ Logan spat, slapping his face for good measure. ‘Or I’ll string you up at the back and drag you over the ground the rest of the way. You little prick.’
Moss nodded. His heart hammered on his ribcage. Had he done enough for Arran?
Gods, he hoped so.