The War of the Grail by Geoffrey Wilson Page A

the hamlet. The villagers might be asleep – but if any of them rose and saw Kanvar riding past, there could be trouble.
    ‘We’d better go round it,’ Jack said.
    He guided his horse off the road to the left, Kanvar following immediately behind. They’d avoided all the towns and villages along the way, making a wide detour round the city of Shrewsbury in particular.
    The swamp slurped beneath the horses’ hooves. The stench of rotting vegetation floated up from the ground and the frogs chirped incessantly. At one point, Jack’s mare almost slipped over when her leg plunged into a deep bog. But she thrashed with her other legs and managed to scramble to safety.
    ‘The ground is too treacherous,’ Kanvar said. ‘Perhaps we should go another way.’
    Jack peered ahead. The line of the woods was less than a hundred yards away. Once they made it to the trees, and past the village, they could strike back to the road.
    ‘No. We’ll carry on. We’re almost there.’ Jack spurred his mare ahead again, and she waded and slipped through the deepening water.
    Kanvar followed behind for a few more paces, but then called out, ‘What’s that?’
    Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw the Sikh pointing towards the ground in the direction of the village.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Jack called back.
    ‘There’s something there.’
    Kanvar circled his horse round and splashed towards the huts.
    Jack cursed under his breath. What was Kanvar up to? They’d given the village a wide berth, but they couldn’t risk going any closer. And they needed to get into the cover of the trees as soon as they could. They were completely exposed in the open ground.
    Kanvar reined his horse in. ‘Jack, you’d better come and have a look at this.’
    Jack shot a look at the village. The huts remained dark. For the moment, he and Kanvar were safe. But for how long?
    Still muttering to himself, he rode over to Kanvar, the mud sucking at his horse’s legs. The Sikh was staring down at a pool. The reflection of the moon hung in the black water, but it shattered into pieces as ripples moved across it.
    At first, Jack couldn’t see what Kanvar was staring at. But then he noticed a pale shape draped across one side of the pool.
    He felt a tremor of nerves. Was that what he thought it was?
    He leapt off his horse, splashing in a puddle, and floundered across the boggy ground, holding his arms out to steady himself. He heard Kanvar dismount and wade after him.
    As he reached the edge of the pool, he saw that he’d guessed correctly.
    The shape was a corpse.
    ‘Waheguru,’ Kanvar whispered.
    The body lay partially on the bank and partially in the water, held in place by clumps of reeds. It was a man, perhaps in his twenties or thirties, with chalky white skin and eyes that seemed to stare in terror at the heavens. Jack couldn’t tell how the man had died, but one of his arms had been cut off at the shoulder, leaving only a bloody stump behind.
    Jack crossed himself and crouched down for a closer look. The body hadn’t begun rotting yet. The muscles hadn’t even gone stiff. The man must have died only a few hours earlier.
    ‘There is something not right about that village.’ Kanvar was standing and gazing at the darkened huts.
    Jack stood up quickly. ‘What?’
    Kanvar pointed. ‘That cottage there appears to have collapsed.’
    Jack followed Kanvar’s finger. Now he noticed that the roof of one of the closer huts appeared to have caved in and one wall had crumbled. He rubbed his eyes and stared harder. To the left of the damaged hut, he spotted another that had been half reduced to rubble. Further off, he saw more huts in a similar state of disrepair.
    That was odd. Very odd.
    ‘The village has been attacked,’ Kanvar said.
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘What else could have caused all that?’
    Jack sucked on his teeth. Kanvar had a point. Why would several huts have collapsed in the village? Why was there a body floating in a pond nearby?