Free The Grey King by Susan Cooper

engines. But up here on the slope, the fire was gaining a greater hold, as the gusting wind caught it in patches, and gradually they were forced downward, into the trees edging the road. In triumphant thunder the fire roared after them.
    â€œDown the road!” the thin man Tom Ellis called. “Those trees will catch in a minute!”
    Will panted along at John Rowland’s side. “What will happen?”
    â€œBurn itself out, eventually.” But the Welshman’s creased face was grim.
    Bran came trotting up at his other side, his white skin smudged and dirty. “This wind is the trouble, taking it up the valley—is Prichard’s place really in danger, Mr. Rowlands?”
    John Rowlands checked his stride for a moment, to gaze all round the sky. Clouds were forming in the blue air now, strange ragged dirty-white cloudsthat seemed to be coming from no one direction. “I don’t know . . . the wind is for a change in the weather, and it is shifting, but hard to tell where . . . we shall have rain sooner or later.”
    â€œWell,” Will said hopefully, “the rain will put the fire out, won’t it?” But as he spoke, he could hear the crackle and roar of the fire like laughter at his back, and he was not surprised when John Rowlands shook his head.
    â€œOnly a great deal of rain . . . the ground is so dry, dry as it never is this time of year—nothing but a downpour will have any effect at all.” He looked round again, frowning at the mountains and the sky. “Something is strange, about this fire and everything . . . something is wrong. . . .” He shook his shoulders, giving up the search, and strode on ahead as they rounded a bend and came towards the fire engine and its thunderous thrumming engine.
    Will thought: Ah, John Rowlands, you see more than you think you see, though not quite enough. The Dark Lord has begun his work in these mountains, the Grey King is building up a wall to enclose the golden harp, and the Sleepers who must be wakened, so that I may not come to them and fulfil the quest. For if he can keep them from the reach of the Light, then the Old Ones will not come into their full power, and there will be none to keep the Dark from rising. . . .
    He said, without knowing that he spoke aloud: “But it won’t work!”
    A voice said softly in his ear, “What won’t work?” Bran’s dark smoky spectacles, shrouding the eyes behind, were staring into his face.
    Will looked at him and said with sudden naked honesty, “I don’t know what to make of you.”
    â€œI know you don’t,” Bran said, a quirk of a smile twitching his strange pale face. “But you’re going to need me all the same.” He spun round, as smoke from the fire up the hillside came billowing down around them. “Don’t worry,” he said, grinning. “Nobody else has ever known what to make of me either.” And he was off, spinning, running, almost dancing up the road towards the fire engine.
    Will ran after him. And then in a moment both of them were brought up short by a sight more astonishing than any yet. Beneath the looming bulk of Craig yr Aderyn the firemen had two hoses playing, drenching both the mountain and the side of the road in an effort to check the fire from leaping over the Craig and down to Prichard’s Farm. Others ran here and there with buckets, fire brooms, anything with which stray sparks might be drowned or beaten out before they gained a hold. The road was buzzing with anxious activity. Yet in the midst of it all, standing rigid and oblivious with fury, stood Caradog Prichard, his red hair bristling, blood on his shirt and a shotgun levelled in one hand—and the other hand out rigid, pointing in accusation as he screamed with rage at John Rowlands.
    â€œBring me the dog! Bring him! I will prove to you that it was him, him