The Sword of Wayland Page 9

  * * * * *

  Oswald awoke with a start. He glanced around him, then wrinkled his nose.

  The wild wood surrounded him, dark and ominous against the blackness of night. Beside him were Edwin and Bork, like him lying wrapped in their cloaks. The night air was chill and silent. What had woken him?

  He gagged suddenly, as a breeze lifted up from the edge of the clearing. A foul stench hit his nostrils; a bestial smell, worse than a badly kept midden, worse than a tannery. He stared at the trees, then froze. What was that?

  Two lights glinted in the darkness beneath a tree: close together, side by side, hovering like fireflies - or two eyes.