‘The Tuatha De Danann,’ Shavi said in amazement.
‘You know them?’ Mallory asked.
‘They call themselves the Golden Ones and believe themselves to be gods.’
‘Enemies or friends?’
‘That has never been an easy question to answer.’ Shavi shielded his eyes from the glare of the street lights reflecting off the snow and peered at the group. ‘Is it…? Yes, I think it is.’ He marched forward from the shelter of the buildings, holding out his arms in a gesture of peace. ‘Lugh!’ he called out.
The leader of the group marched forward, proud and tall, the suspicion slowly falling from his face to be replaced by something that almost came close to awe. ‘Great hero.’ He bowed his head slightly. ‘The filid of our court still sing songs of your exploits.’
Shavi took the compliment gracefully, then motioned to Mallory who was still surveying the group with caution.
‘And a Brother of Dragons,’ Lugh said with a bow. ‘Surely, then, we have come to the right place.’
‘Why are you here?’ Shavi asked.
The tension that had turned Lugh’s face to stone fell away to reveal deep emotion. Shavi was shocked by the grief he saw there. Lugh fought to control his voice, then said, ‘The Court of Soul’s Ease has been overrun by those who were once my brothers and sisters. But no longer. Now they are my enemies for all time. They wiped from Existence all those they encountered. The night turned golden with fluttering moths.’ He gestured towards the rest of his group with a hand that trembled uncontrollably. ‘These are all that remain.’
‘The entire court was wiped out?’ Shavi said, horrified.
Lugh struggled to contain his despair. ‘If we had remained behind, we would have been extinguished, too. We retreated to the Watchtower, and then to here, to the Fixed Lands we love so much. That battle is lost, but the war will be rejoined once we have made contact with the Court of the Final Word.’
Mallory didn’t like the note he heard in Lugh’s voice. It was hard, uncompromising, and promised a brutal revenge.
‘For the time being we have come here to help you with your struggle. For if this battle is lost, our war cannot be fought. Besides,’ he added, ‘we owe a great debt to your fellow Sister of Dragons and her associate, Sister no more.’
‘Sister of Dragons?’ Mallory said. ‘Where is she?’ He looked at Shavi eagerly. ‘Then we’ve got another one.’ He paused. ‘Sister no more? What are you talking about?’
‘You do not know them?’ Lugh asked, puzzled. ‘One of the Sisters has lost the fire that blazes inside. The Morrigan now rides her. The other Sister, a brave woman filled with power, came this way before us, through the Watchtower. In the names of your kind she is called Sophie-’
Lugh didn’t have the chance to continue for Mallory turned to Shavi, passionate emotions running unchecked across his face. ‘It can’t be,’ Mallory said; he was afraid that Lugh would reveal it to be a mistake or some cruel joke.
‘The Brother of Dragons believed this Sister to be dead,’ Shavi said to Lugh.
Lugh shook his head. ‘She lives, though she was grievously wounded when she came to the Far Lands. She was repaired in the Court of the Final Word, then-’
Ceridwen emerged from the group to join Lugh. ‘Then I brought her to the Court of Soul’s Ease. Sophie is brave and true, a fine addition to the ranks of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’
Mallory was afraid he would cry with the heady mix of joy and relief. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, his voice breaking.
‘The Sister of Dragons will be here,’ Ceridwen replied, ‘for the Watchtower always ensures that its occupants arrive where they are needed most.’
Mallory grabbed Shavi in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground. Shavi laughed. ‘I am so pleased for you, Mallory,’ he said. ‘And for us all.’
Mallory dropped Shavi and looked around as if Sophie would miraculously appear before him. ‘Come on! We have to find her!’
Shavi placed a hand on Mallory’s shoulder, calm, assured. ‘There will be time for a reunion, time for all the words you thought you would never have the chance to say. But that time is not now.’ He motioned to the Tuatha De Danann, depleted in number but still strong. ‘These are our allies. In the coming fight, we will need them at our side. But if they stay here, they will be taken away — or worse, attacked where they stand. We need shelter, Mallory. We must draw our forces together.’
Mallory’s heart was thundering so hard that he could barely hear Shavi’s words, but he knew the truth of them. Despite everything he felt, he accepted his duty. ‘Tell your people to follow us,’ he said to Lugh. ‘We’ll find a safe place for them until the time comes for the battle.’
Then he turned to Shavi, his face brighter and more hopeful than Shavi had ever seen it. ‘We can do this. I really think we can.’
And with that, he was away along the street, leading the strange troupe with renewed energy.
In his room, huddled before the fire but still not warm, Hal sat surrounded by piles of books that would have seemed to the casual observer to have been arranged in such a way as to form a defence against the outside world. Samantha had been forced to return to her own quarters earlier. Left on his own, the assassination of the prime minister had haunted him for much of the day, his feelings exacerbated by his memories of his recent visit with the leader. The murder would cause despair at a time when they needed hope, chaos when they were desperate for an ordered defence.
During the previous few hours, his mind had found some solace in the mystery that had tested him for so many days. Burying himself in it was an attempt to regain some measure of control when he felt so powerless, but more importantly he was still convinced that it was the key to survival.
At first the puzzle had appeared intractable, but the more he allowed himself to sink into its depths, the more he began to discover subtle connecting strands. Hal was aware of the pitfalls: that mysteries have a seductive power to lull those trying to solve them into making great leaps that, however logical they seem, take them in the wrong direction. Even so, he was sure he was close to a breakthrough.
His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps pounding along the corridor without, then a desperate hammering on his door. Hal opened it to find Samantha in a distraught state.
‘Why have you risked breaking the curfew?’ Hal said, concerned, as she forced her way past him. ‘Whatever it is, they won’t be lenient if they catch you out there. I wouldn’t be surprised-’
‘Hal, shut up!’ The sharpness in her tone silenced him instantly.
‘What’s wrong?’
Samantha listened intently. Through the open door, Hal could hear shouts, running feet, drawing closer. ‘They’re coming for you, Hal!’
‘Me?’
‘They’re saying that you killed the prime minister-’
‘But I was nowhere near him when it happened!’
‘They’re saying that he was killed by some secret weapon, something you planted on him when you met with him.’
‘It’s not true.’ Hal took a deep breath. ‘I’ll explain it all when they get here. There’s been some mistake.’
Samantha grabbed Hal by the shoulders and shook him roughly. ‘Stop acting like a sensible clerk! They’re after a scapegoat so that they can get everyone behind the new leader. And they’re determined to pin it on you!’ She swallowed. ‘They’re going to have you executed as a traitor… make an example of you.’
‘But…’ The thoughts wouldn’t come quickly enough.
‘Stop talking!’ She grabbed him and thrust him out into the corridor. ‘Run! Find somewhere to lie low until… until all this blows over!’
Oddly, the most overwhelming thought in Hal’s head at that moment was the warmth he felt at the deep concern he could see in Samantha’s face. ‘What about you? If they catch you here-’
‘They won’t. Now, go!’
As she ran past him, she paused and gave him a kiss on the cheek, li
ngering just long enough to search his face before she was away and down the stairs. The sound of the guards was rapidly drawing closer.
Hal ran quickly along the corridor and down the far steps. More snow was falling, and he would be leaving footprints, but he had a head start. As he sprinted through the bitter cold and into the night, his alarm became intense. If they caught him, everything he had learned would be lost. But could he survive with everyone in the city looking for him? Suddenly lost and desperate, he ran as fast as he could to the only place he knew where he might be able to hide.
The barricades were up on every street into the city. Beyond them, purple mist was dimly visible away in the night. The Lament-Brood had arrived. Their forces encircled the city, thousands deep, an army that would never give up. There was no escape for anyone in Oxford.
The end had begun.
Chapter Fifteen
The Light Burns Brightest
‘ The great mass of the people… will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one.’
Adolf Hitler
In a bower of ivy and roses, Hunter and Laura lay in a post-coital glow that belied the freezing temperatures outside. Their refuge was well insulated, the ivy covering a layer of interlacing living hazelnut, encased in elder, then Russian creeper, and finally densely packed hawthorn at least two feet thick. The warmth of their bodies kept the interior temperature nicely balmy. Even the sound of the howling blizzard failed to penetrate.
Hunter plucked one of the blooms and examined it. ‘Roses. Didn’t quite picture you as the romantic type.’
Laura stretched like a cat. ‘Actually, it masks your body odour. When was the last time you had a bath?’
‘If you think I’m going to frolic around in water in sub-zero temperatures, you’ve got another thing coming. Even if I could crack the ice. No, I’m quite happy reeking, thank you very much.’
‘For your information, I am romantic. It just has to be the right person, and you’re not it. What we have here is sex, pure and simple. Of the moment and not to be considered the instant our bodies separate.’
‘I’m in heaven.’ Hunter put his hands behind his head and surreptitiously sniffed his armpits. ‘I don’t get how she became a hero.’
Laura knew exactly who he meant: Ruth had been on both their minds since they had left Lincoln. Laura had not been parted from her since the Fall, and for a while had thought she never would be; they had never really been the closest of friends, but they were kindred spirits, bound by the Pendragon Spirit, hope and sacrifice and struggle. Though she would never tell Hunter, Laura was feeling a loneliness she hadn’t experienced for a long while.
‘You don’t know anything about her, so keep your trap shut,’ she said.
‘I know that she’s supposed to be a champion of life or humanity or whatever you want to call it, and when it came to the crunch, she turned her back on her obligation.’
Laura hovered over him, eyes blazing. ‘You have no right to judge her. Don’t ever do that again.’
The chilling hardness of her expression made Hunter reconsider his approach. ‘All right, I don’t know her. But you must accept that her decision could mean the end for all of us.’
‘And maybe it’s all over because you lot fucked up. We’ve done our bit. We fought and sacrificed. Your Five were supposed to pick up where we left off. Now you’ve come crying back to us-’
‘OK, back off. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight-’
Laura wasn’t about to let him off the hook. ‘Ruth loved Church more than anything. She’d earned her right to be with him. But this life isn’t fair, is it? We went through all we went through at the Fall and there’s still no happy ending for her. They deserved to be together, just so that the rest of us could see what true love is really all about.’
Hunter grabbed her shoulders and gently pushed her back. He was a little disturbed at the way hawthorn shoots had started to burst out of the ground all around him as her anger increased.
‘I’m not saying she hasn’t had a raw deal-’
‘Worse than that!’
‘Whatever. But sometimes you have to rise above your own suffering. Duty, responsibility, call it what you will. Everybody’s relying on us.’
‘You’re perfect for this job, aren’t you?’ she sneered, rolling away.
They lay separated by a gulf for ten minutes, until Hunter tenderly reached out to stroke her bare back. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Forget it.’
‘We’re going to do our best. No blame. That’s the job, too, isn’t it?’
‘Suppose.’
Hunter kissed her shoulder. ‘So if you’re all plant, how do you still get pleasure from this? Wouldn’t you be happier photosynthesising or something?’
‘I get pleasure from my clitoris, and yes, like all my other organs, I have one. I can, if I like, eat and drink, but I’ve given up on the periods.’
‘Don’t you miss being human?’
‘Overrated. And I told you — I’ll never be on the rag again. You tell me one woman who wouldn’t rather be a nature spirit than have to go through that every month.’
Hunter watched her as she dressed. Her personality wasn’t the easiest thing to like, but he admired her, and there weren’t many people about whom he could say that.
He rolled over and propped up his head so that he could get a last look at her body. ‘So was this plant thing written in the stars when you became a Sister of Dragons?’
‘You ask a lot of questions. Can’t you just go to sleep after sex like a normal bloke?’
‘Stop avoiding.’
She sighed. ‘Being a Brother or Sister of Dragons is about freeing the potential inside you. Didn’t you get the manual? You run around, leading your day-to-day life, and then somewhere a switch gets thrown and you’re activated. Over time, as you do your duty, you learn, you’re changed by hardship and all the nightmarish things you face, and gradually all those hidden qualities you never dared believe you had are teased out into the open.’
‘So you always had a bit of vegetation deep down inside.’
‘With some work, you could almost be funny. I was an environmental campaigner, a member of a radical green group. Tree-huggers, the right-wing wankers called us. So it was there. And maybe Cernunnos saw that when he turned me into this. It was my potential, to be a champion of the green, living world.’
‘And Ruth became the Uber-Witch.’
‘Right. From pain in the arse to the most powerful woman on the planet. Shavi became a magician or a seer or whatever he used to call himself. He could contact spirits, see the other side, like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Veitch. Poor, pathetic, useless Veitch. He went from a jumped-up petty crook to some kind of Conan the Barbarian warrior. And Church…’ Despite herself, her voice took on a hint of deep respect. ‘He became the kind of leader you’d always want in a fight. And like the kings in the old stories, he sacrificed himself so that everyone could live again. End of fairy story.’
Hunter lay back, musing. ‘Wonder what I’ll become.’
Laura eyed him dismissively. ‘Probably some kind of insect hybrid, if there’s any justice.’
‘You’re just playing distant because you’re secretly broken-hearted that we can never be together.’ He sat up, scrubbed his hair and cracked his knuckles. ‘Right. I’ve eaten as many vegetables and fruits as I can probably cope with. I’ve had sex. I think I’m ready for the rest of the journey.’
They hadn’t seen a single soul on their travels south from Lincoln. Much of their route took them across the flat eastern lowlands, now a desolate frozen wasteland. Flurries of snow blew across it in little tornados and the wind cut through their thick clothes. There was no sign of any birds or wildlife. During the day, the sun blazed so brightly off the drifting snow that they had to keep their heads bowed to avoid blindness. At night it felt as if they’d been stranded on the surface of the moon.
They never spoke about what dangers lay ahead or w
hether they had any hope of survival. They lived for the moment, seeking what little pleasures they could, knowing full well they might be their last.
Ten miles from Oxford, just as Mallory was leading a strange group of gods through the deserted streets of the city, Hunter and Laura finally allowed their darkest thoughts to catch up with them. They looked out over a force that left them breathless with its size. The Lament-Brood numbered millions. Several miles deep, the enemy force now encircled Oxford completely, the purple mist streaming out from them in the darkness. The waves of despair that washed off them made Hunter sick to the pit of his stomach.
‘Looks like we shouldn’t have made that last pit-stop, big boy,’ Laura said. ‘Now who’s the fuck-up?’
‘Bloody hell. I never expected them to reach here so quickly. Before I set off they were taking their time, wiping every population centre clean. They must have put on a spurt.’
‘As if they knew that the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were gathering. So they got straight to the source of the only opposition.’
‘But how would they know about us?’
Laura pushed her hood away from her face; her shock of blonde hair glowed spectrally in the dark. ‘Things like that, they can smell us. See us on some kind of level we don’t understand. The Pendragon Spirit is like a beacon in the night to them.’
Hunter surveyed the extent of the Lament-Brood, his mind racing.
‘Looking on the bright side, at least it means we’re a threat,’ Laura added.
‘Why don’t you divert your brain away from your mouth and come up with a way to get through them and into Oxford?’ Hunter said humourlessly.
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