"Let them," I hefted my stick, fully ready for a fight with any number of men. I had been petrified, soaked, dangled over cliffs and forced to watch the death of two of my companions. If any flesh-and-blood man tried to attack us, I would c***k his skull and joy in his yells for mercy.
"Everybody halt." There was something nearly military in Lorna"s order. We stopped and listened. I heard the patter of the rain on our clothes, the low gurgle of the burns and the melancholic, bubbling cry of a curlew somewhere on the hillside. I also heard, on the fringes of reason, the echo of voices, slow whispering through the mist. I could not make out the words or even the form of words, but the voices were real, muttering among the heather and rocks.
"Can you hear them?" Charlie was near hysteria. "
