They needed to get out of here, Grant thought, holding Childermass firmly against his side. They needed to get off the moors in very sharp order, that much was extremely obvious. There was, however, just one small logistical problem to be dealt with first.

Childermass was clearly in no fit state to ride. Stubborn might get him a certain distance, but given how often he'd collapsed already, there was no way he'd be able to hold on at a gallop or even a fast trot while they fled the moor. He'd fall off his horse before they'd gone five miles, and that would be a fine cap to the afternoon. To get so far only to be murdered by his own trampling beast of a horse. No. That wouldn't do at all.

He gave some brief thought to simply throwing the man across his own saddle horn and riding for it, but if his attempt to throw the man across his shoulder had been anything to go by, that would earn him an honest fight, and they could hardly afford that either. He'd have to sit the man in front of him in the saddle, across his knees so he could keep a hold of him. That was hardly going to be either comfortable or dignified, and he had some suspicion that Childermass' abused dignity had already reached the end of its rope, but there was just no bloody helping it.

"Will your horse follow mine?" he asked, while they stumbled over to the animals. Childermass, who'd obviously been thinking along similar lines to him, and not liking the results any better, grimaced viciously. He conceded the necessity, however. He could apparently be a very practical man in places.

"Brewer knows how to get home," he agreed sourly. "He'll follow where I go. If you think I'm going across your saddle horn, though, you can damn well think again."

Grant blinked at him, mildly sheepish to have been caught out, and the glare Childermass sent him when he realised that was a true champion. Grant shrugged, trying to hide his smile, and was helpfully reminded by the howling from the bottom of the ridge that they should really hurry up about things.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said, and pulled the man over to help get him up onto the horse. It was going to take some pushing. Childermass was weak as a babe, and whether he'd have the strength to pull himself up was an honest question. "Sit up on the horn for a minute, let me get in behind you. You can rest back against me once I've got my feet in the stirrups, all right?"

Childermass only snarled, and then tried, honestly and desperately, to pull himself up into the saddle. The horse shifted, startled and uneasy, and Grant had to hastily reach out and steady it. It looked for a minute that Childermass was going to fall back down, his dignity finally killed at last, when suddenly ...

When suddenly the tree the horses had been tied to, the tree itself, reached down with its branches and grabbed Childermass by his caped shoulders. It plucked him up into the air, Grant stumbling back a step which a shocked cry, and dropped him entirely artlessly into the saddle. Childermass landed with a thump, clinging wild-eyed while the horse shied beneath him, and Grant could tell by his stunned, white face that that had most definitely not been a planned part of the proceedings. Which, given that a tree had just come to life, was not at all a reassuring thing to be realising.

"... What?" he asked, stepping close again cautiously. "Did you just ...?" Somewhat hoping, you see, despite all evidence of the day so far.

"No," Childermass said, still wild-eyed. He calmed quickly, though. He turned to his head to study the tree with sharp, only mildly panicked eyes. Grant blinked up at him, itchily aware of the howling still drawing ever closer. Moving trees that plucked people in and out of saddles were something of a pressing problem as well, though. He allowed that.

"Well?" he asked, after a long second. Not hurriedly. He'd no very pressing need to be elsewhere at the moment, of course not. Childermass glanced down at him, but both his shock and his aggravation seemed to have vanished, suddenly. In their place, there was something that looked ... almost like awe. Like wonder.

"It's the moor," the man said softly, with something of a dazed expression. "It's still listening. All of it, not just the rock. It's ... It's gone and woken up."

Grant blinked rapidly, the prickling sensation on the back of his neck suddenly becoming very pressing indeed. He glanced warily around him, wondering what that meant exactly. The rocks had carried them up half a mile of ridge, and a tree had just picked a man up and dropped him where it wanted him. The moors were vast around them, and judging by the man in front of him they were not a tame place at all. He wasn't sure he was happy with the idea that they'd gone and taken an interest in the somewhat vulnerable men atop them.

But then ... then they had helped, so far. Everything they'd done, even putting Childermass up on the horse, had been aimed to help them. Childermass believed in them. He believed with utter surety that the moors would stand by him against his enemies, and they certainly had a very pressing one of those right now. They'd not been let down so far. So ... maybe that faith wasn't such an unfounded thing for the man to have.

"... Do you think they'd be willing to help us, then?" he asked the man softly. Childermass blinked down at him, a fey sort of look about him, and Grant swallowed faintly but continued on. He stepped back in close to the horse, rested his hand just behind the man's leg, and asked it of him in lieu of the moors themselves. "Do you think they might try and waylay that thing for us, just until we get clear? We'd not be leaving it with them long. When we know how to deal with it, we'll come back and do so. But if they could help us now, just to get away from it ...?"

Childermass blinked slowly at him. There was a strange expression on his face. Not an alien one, not as though something other than himself was looking out through his eyes, though there was perhaps a hint of that. He was a half-wild thing, even still, and the moors apparently spoke to him. But no. This was Childermass' own expression, and Grant couldn't quite interpret it.

".. You'll give them your word, will you?" the man asked him quietly, heavily, after a thoughtful second. "You'll promise them to return and deal with it when the time comes?"

And oh. Oh, Grant understood that, all right. That wasn't a question the moors were asking. It was a question Childermass, the man who had been so surprised that Grant would actually stand fast beside him, was asking yet again, for about the fourth time so far this day. The lack of trust might have wearied him, save that Grant had only really noticed it a few minutes before, and save that it wasn't quite distrust that he was seeing now. It was more ... a search for confirmation. It was that Childermass quite nearly did trust him, and was only holding out for one last sign that it might be warranted.

Grant wanted to give him that sign. Almost more than anything he'd wanted in quite a while, he wanted to earn the trust of this odd, defiant man, who did not flinch in the face of monsters. And it wasn't much he was being asked for. Only the completion of a job Grant had already begun, and would be damned if he didn't see finished now. So. So then indeed.

"I will," he said, calmly and honestly as he looked up at the man. "I'll give them my word to return, once we have a hope of winning this fight. I won't leave them to face a monster alone. I promise that, and please believe me when I say that I am a man of my word, Mr Childermass."

There was a small, thoughtful pause, and then Childermass said, slowly and with equal honesty: "I don't doubt it, Major Grant. I don't doubt it at all."

He held out his hand then, as though to pull Grant up onto the horse in open spite of the fact that he hadn't even had the strength to get himself up there. Before Grant could say anything about that, though, before he could give in to the urge to knock the stubborn idiot upside the head, the very earth beneath Grant's feet moved. He gave a startled yelp, nearly panicking, but then the tree reached out to him as well, steadied his shoulder with its branches, and the earth beneath Grant's feet rose up and held him comfortably level with the saddle, so that he might just casually sling his leg across it. Grant stared at Childermass, and Childermass stared right on back at him, apparently equally startled. A burst of humour bubbled up through Grant. It looked, after a second, to be entirely mutual.

"I think the moors accept your bargain, sir," Childermass said to him wryly, and balanced up on the saddle horn for a second to let Grant slide in behind him. The effort clearly damaged him, his arms shaking with the strain, and Grant was sure to settle himself quickly behind the man. He eased Childermass gently back down and then dropped his own forehead against the man's back, just for the smallest of seconds.

"I'm glad of it," he said, honestly enough, but then felt compelled to add: "Do you think we might be allowed to leave them now? This has been an interesting day, and I do not wish to finish it as barghest food. We've come close enough to that already for one lifetime."

Childermass chuckled tiredly and leaned back against him, an exhausted weight against Grant's legs and chest. "You are in command of the horse, not I," he noted quietly, but gripped Grant's hands in his own gloved ones for a second. "We will come back, when we're ready. It's promised now. This is not entirely over, sir."

"No," Grant agreed, as he twitched the reins to lead them cautiously back out onto the road, Childermass' wicked beast following warily along behind them. He wrapped one arm firmly around Childermass' waist, bound and determined that the man should not be taken away from him. "It's over for now, though, and I think it's past time for us to leave. Hold on as long you can, sir. This will not be a pleasant ride, even with all the help the moors may give."

Childermass did not answer. He merely gripped the saddle horn in front of him with fading strength, and set his jaw once more against necessity. Grant spurred the horse slowly but surely to walk, then a trot, then a gallop. Behind them, seeming to hear them as they fled, the barghest raised a furious, eerie howl, a sound that seemed to shake the very skies above them and the moors around them. Grant swallowed, leaning forward and forcing Childermass ahead of him, lying protectively across the man and the horse's back. The wind picked up, roaring past them back across the moor, and a sudden whispering rose through the heather around them, over the thunder of the hooves. The moor grew bleak and menacing, moreso even than usual, and Childermass groaned in sudden strain in front of him. The man's back went stiff, for the tiniest of seconds, and then fell limp again. The tautness fled from his arms, strength and consciousness along with it, and Childermass fainted away for the last time as the entirety of the Yorkshire moors seemed to come to sudden, vengeful life around them.

Grant, by far too inured to such occurrences by now, merely kept his head down, kept a firm, bruising grip on the unconscious man's waist, and drove them determinedly onward across the moorland's back. There were howls behind him, baying hounds, screams of fury and the incongruous clanking of chains above the wind, but they never again came close. Indeed, they faded in and out, cut off by the snarling of the wind and thrown from one end of the moors to the other, and he reflected grimly that he had best not renege on his promise, for it seemed that the Yorkshire moors were very much creatures of their word as well, and would take any betrayal on his part very badly amiss.

He'd not intended to, anyway. Childermass would not, and Grant was damned sure never letting the man back up here alone again. He was far too willing to get himself killed.

Evening fell, as they came down out of the moorlands, galloping across lower, gentler countryside at last. Grant pushed them onwards, only slowing his pace to spare the horses. He turned them on towards Starecross, towards Mrs Strange and safety. He felt a need for it, suddenly. The growing twilight fell itchily across still-raw nerves, and while he did not doubt that the moors would keep the barghest caged behind them, he had no current fondness for darkness and all that might lurk in it. He needed them to be home, or as close as came to it for now.

Childermass stirred once they cleared the moors. He groaned, scrunched painfully and awkwardly between Grant and the saddle, and blinked blearily around them as Grant slowed the horses to a panting, exhausted walk a few miles off from Starecross. He almost wished they might transfer to Brewer, spare his own animal now that the need wasn't so great, but he'd never get Childermass down and up again at this point. They'd have to settle for limping the last few miles in thoroughly exhausted fashion.

Half the house was waiting for them, when they finally made it to the gate. More than that. Every magician currently in Northern England seemed to be gathered in the yard, though how they'd known to expect an arrival now Grant couldn't have said. Mrs Strange was in the lead, though, with Lady Pole, Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot right behind her. At the sight of them, Childermass very, very painfully straightened in his seat. Pride. Even to the last, the man was ruled by a certain damnable, impossible pride.

"What on earth happened up there?" Mr Segundus cried, running out to meet them and looking them worriedly over for ... wounds, maybe. Death, for all Grant knew. "The whole North must have felt that, Mr Childermass! You've woken half the moor! What happened?!"

Grant was in no mood for questions, however, and he was more than happy to say so. He pulled himself awkwardly out from beneath Childermass, leaving the man hunched and panting in the saddle, and dismounted to glare pointedly at all around them.

"In the morning," he said curtly, though he offered Arabella an apologetic bow at the same time. "Please. The matter is safely corralled for now, and we are dead on our feet. We will report to you all in the morning, but right now I must get Mr Childermass inside. The damn thing's almost killed him."

"Thing?" Segundus asked warily, though he stepped back in neat order and did not protest as Grant turned to help Childermass gingerly to the ground. Childermass protested, right enough, bitterly determined not to be weak in front of them, but his exhaustion betrayed him at the last. He half-fell down into Grant's arms, hiding his face for half a second in shame before glaring defiantly out at them, and Segundus reacted with instant, genuine gentility. "Oh, of course. Follow me, Mr Grant. If we can be assured of our safety, we will naturally deal with the rest in the morning."

"We're safe," Childermass growled, leaning weakly on Grant despite his best wishes. "'Tis a barghest, but the moors have trapped it for us for now. We've time to plan, John Segundus. Don't worry about that."

At the word 'barghest', Mr Segundus gave a little squeak, and looked as if he very much intended to worry about it, but to his eternal credit he pestered them no more. He led them past the rest, guiding them up and into the house, and left them at Childermass' room with a hurried word about seeing to it that they had water and food sent up to them at once. Grant liked him, he decided. He was a fussy sort of a creature, but he was a deeply, genuinely good man behind it. And, more to the point, he had finally led them to safety.

After the day he'd just had, there was nothing in the world that Grant was currently more grateful for.