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greeting. The beast trotted forward, bending its forelegs and tilting its antlers to meet Solon’s careful caress.
    ‘Greetings, my friend,’ said Solon, stroking the stag’s thick neck, feeling a warmth radiating up his arm and into his chest.
    Suddenly, despite the task ahead, Solon’s whole being filled with confidence, the fears he had about entering Skinner’s Bog diminishing in his mind. He felt the way he did when the Abbot calmed him.
    Had the peryton the power to inspirit?
    Solon climbed on to the peryton’s back. With graceful ease, the creature rose up into the moonlit sky, its gleaming white presence gliding over the tall trees and looking to the curious villagers below like a swift silver cloud. The peryton’s wingspan was wider than the spreading branches of the greatest tree in the forest, and yet it flew with only a faint whoosh of its wings.
    Solon peered down in wonder as the monastery and Brother Renard’s partly-built tower on the northern tip of Era Mina sank away beneath him. From this vantage point, he could see the islands in their entirety for the first time. He marvelled at how tranquil they looked.
    Shifting forward, Solon gripped the peryton’s neck.
    ‘You need not worry about navigating to the bog,’ the Abbot had told him. ‘The peryton will find the place.’
    A rough journey that would have taken Solon hours on foot had taken only moments. The silvery white peryton landed between two tall pines, the feathered tips of its wings grazing the branches and leaving a patina of white on the leaves like a dusting of snow. Kneeling on its front legs, the peryton let Solon slide on to the crunchy undergrowth that littered the forest floor. Skinner’s Bog was directly ahead of him. He’d seen it from above.
    For a moment, Solon stood with his back to the peryton, getting his bearings. He felt small and vulnerable in the creature’s company, but sensed no threat from the magnificent beast – only a buzzing heat from its body. The peryton had brought him to the centre of Auchinmurn, beside the island’s highest peak, riddled with caves and treacherous pitched overhangs that had seen many a robber or smuggler wandering in the dark and falling over the edge to the jagged rocks below.
    Solon crouched and picked up a handful of pine-needles. There was no scent, no perfume from the pine, no suggestion of the wild mint that Solon knew was everywhere on these islands. This was the most isolated place he had ever been.
    The wind was still, the stars bright. But beneath the canopy of the tall pines and oaks, they contributed very little light. In the glow from the peryton, Solon took a few steps towards the Devil’s Dyke – a ring of monolithic standing stones that formed a barrier round the bog. The villagers on Auchinmurn and many of the monks believed the Devil and his minions had erected this megalith to protect the bog’s secrets. Legend told that only the Devil himself, riding on his black stag, could pass through the stones and the impenetrable undergrowth beyond.
    Solon leaped out of his skin as he heard the sound of grass being torn up somewhere to his left, before realizing that it was only wild sheep grazing nearby. He felt a change in the air around him. The darkness was heavy, as if it had a presence. Up this high, the night was tangible. A sheen of sweat settled beneath his leather tunic and leggings. The gloom felt as if it was seeping under his garments and crawling along his skin.
    He rubbed his arms together. It was cold. In the darkness, he could barely make out the thick swirling outlines of nettles and hawthorn bushes crowded together beyond the stones, their leaves glistening in the pale starlight.
    The peryton stood to its full height, startling Solon from his reverie. Its eyes blazed with a light so strong that it illuminated everything. Solon stared at the brightly lit thorny briars and nettles surrounding the obelisks before him. How was he ever going to get through