‘The Wild Hunt,’ Mallory said in awe.
Otherworldly horses, filled with power and ferocity, cut a swathe through the Lament-Brood. Their riders brought down scores of the enemy with long pikes affixed with sickle-shaped blades. Every now and then, strange red and white dogs ran up sheer walls before descending on the Lament-Brood with snapping jaws.
Though the Hunt fought ferociously in and out of the surging currents of the Lament-Brood, there were not enough of them to make any significant impact. Hunter felt his mouth grow dry, his palms sweaty, familiar signs that told him instinctively that battle was not far away.
Four more of the Tuatha De Danann fell on one edge of their defensive line, leaving a gap through which the Lament-Brood surged. Caitlin bounded forward in an instant with a blood-curdling yell and a flash of an axe, and the first of the Lament-Brood dropped to its knees, its head cleaved in two at the level of the top of its ears. Caitlin followed through with a backhand slash that took down another. And then she was fighting wildly, using not just the axe, but tearing at throats with nails and teeth if her strokes were constricted. Eyes were torn out, ribs dug open and snapped, jaws ripped off.
And then Mallory was at her side, the blazing blue flames of Llyrwyn adding a majestic counterpoint to the Morrigan’s horror of blood and death. Together they plugged the gap.
Yet there was only the briefest lull, for more gods fell at the other end of the line and Hunter threw himself into the fray to fight alongside Laura, who was using both a short sword and her own abilities to send nature rampant in the vicinity, bursting bodies with suddenly sprouting trees or tying others up in constricting ivy.
In the thick of it, there was no room for distraction; every iota of concentration and energy was given over to staying alive. Each opponent was only inches away from Hunter’s face, their eyes glassy, their flesh peeling back to reveal the bone beneath. And as each one fell, another took their place. Wounds multiplied across Hunter’s body.
Then an axe came crashing down towards him. Hunter barely avoided it, but the blow continued to fall and sheared Laura’s sword hand off at the wrist.
‘Don’t worry!’ she cried. ‘Don’t worry!’ She staggered back, clutching at the stump, her face drawn. But there was no blood.
Hunter had no chance to check whether she had crawled back to safety, for the Lament-Brood were instantly forcing their way through the gap in the line, driving the other defenders back.
‘Retreat! Regroup!’ Lugh yelled.
Hunter ran into the shadow of the Divinity School and only then did he see with dismay that a mere seven of the Tuatha De Danann remained. Lugh stood amongst them, heroically organising his dwindling band for their final stand, and though his face remained stoic and committed, Hunter knew what desperate thoughts must be raging through his head at the impending destruction of his race.
Lugh saw Hunter staring and said, ‘We stand and fall as brothers, our two peoples joined for all time. Equals. What do you say, Brother of Dragons?’
‘I say we’re proud to have you at our side, Lugh.’ Hunter’s attention was caught by Laura sitting against a wall.
‘Keep your eyes on the battle,’ she snapped. ‘I can look after myself.’
Though he couldn’t be sure, it appeared to Hunter that where her stump had been, something was growing.
Mallory was suddenly at his side. ‘This is madness. We’ve barely made a dent in the Lament-Brood and that big bastard is still waiting there, untouched. If he’s directing them, we should try to take him out.’
‘I agree,’ Hunter said. ‘But how do you propose we get through that lot?’
The next wave of Lament-Brood reached them a second later. The defenders fought furiously, but their numbers were too few. They were driven back and back, until they were pressed against the ancient brick walls. Hunter knew the signs: they were minutes from being overrun.
Another of the Tuatha De Danann fell, and then another, as Hunter yelled, ‘We can’t hold the position! Get inside the building and barricade the doors!’
But they were already too hemmed in to escape to the Divinity School’s entrance. While striking out with his sword, Lugh turned to Hunter and said, ‘Get set, Brother of Dragons. The Golden Ones will buy you time.’
Hunter knew what he meant, and felt a wave of sadness wash over him. But there was no time to consider it or even to acknowledge Lugh’s final act of sacrifice. While Hunter fought for his life against two of the Lament-Brood, Lugh drove forward with his remaining men, apparently towards the King of Insects. The Lament-Brood instantly turned all their attention on the gods.
Lugh led his men into the heart of the surging mass. There was no possible escape; blows were raining in from every side.
With Caitlin fighting a frenzied rearguard action, Hunter led Mallory and Laura through the open door of the Divinity School. Once inside, Hunter turned to look back. Golden moths were glowing amongst the snowflakes.
But Lugh fought on alone, not relenting in his determination to repel the attackers, until there was a bright flash like the sun coming up on a glorious day. When the light cleared, he was gone.
Chapter Eighteen
The King Of Insects
‘ The next greatest misfortune to losing a battle is to gain such a victory as this.’
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
Hal refused to give in to despair. While the cries of the supernatural beings that filled the cells around him grew more frenzied with each passing hour, he had reached a Zen-like state where he had just about managed to prevent the guilt and the powerlessness from eating away at him. All his hope was placed in Hunter and the others. They would discover where he was, and then overcome all odds to free him. That was the kind of thing the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons did.
The door swung open and two armed guards stood there. ‘It’s time, traitor,’ one of them said with an underlying note of contempt. ‘We’re to take you to your place of execution.’
The hammering at the doors sounded like the end of the world. Deafening echoes reverberated so loudly throughout the Divinity School that Mallory had to yell to be heard above the din.
‘What’s the point of this?’ he shouted. ‘All we’re gaining is a few more minutes. Sooner or later they’re going to break in and this place will be a slaughter house.’
Hunter remained unaccountably calm. Though the others couldn’t see the signs in his face, Lugh’s sacrifice had affected him deeply — a higher being giving up its existence for a lesser life form; it brought sharply into relief the responsibilities that he had already accepted.
‘We’re not giving up,’ he said calmly.
The Divinity School was a long hall with a flagged stone floor and rows of tall windows on opposing walls that flooded the place with sunlight during the day. Overhead, a carved, vaulted ceiling added to the atmosphere of majesty, which coexisted uncomfortably with the chaotic sound of the Lament-Brood attempting to smash down the doors with their weapons and fists.
A group of around forty people cowered in one corner of the room. Thackeray and Harvey were doing their best to calm them, and were looked upon with a touch of awe, as if they were emissaries between the heroic, almost god-like defenders and the ordinary people.
Hunter observed them and felt a touch of humility at the task that had been presented to him. For the first time in his life he was in a fight that felt completely just, where death was not simply a matter of political expediency. ‘There’s a second storey housing the library,’ he said. ‘Let’s get up there. And bring Ceridwen.’
As they crossed the floor, Thackeray grabbed Caitlin. ‘You’re not going out there, surely?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I’ve got a big responsibility invested in me, Thackeray. I can’t turn away from it.’
A huge weight of emotion lay behind his quiet sigh. ‘I followed you from this world to T’ir n’a n’Og, put my life on the line… bloody hell, put Harvey’s life on the line, which h
e’ll never let me forget. You’re a very special person, Caitlin. I’ve never met…’ His words faltered. ‘Look, I’m a soft old romantic and I don’t want you holding that against me. I just wanted to say that I love you. I’ve never loved anybody the way I love you.’ He let out another sigh. ‘There. No going back now.’
Caitlin leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘I know.’ She smiled, turned to leave, then paused. When she looked back, her eyes were bright and free of the Morrigan’s coldness. ‘I love you, too, Thackeray. And given time… when my husband’s death isn’t so raw
… I’m sure that love would grow. I know it would.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he said with faux-lightness. ‘Then you’d better make sure we get the time together that we need.’
His eyes never left her as she joined the others and then disappeared in search of the stairs. Even then, he concentrated on the ghost-image she had left in his mind, until Harvey urged him to return to help the frightened group of survivors.
From the first-floor window, Mallory and Hunter looked out on a street where purple mist almost obscured the packed bodies of the Lament-Brood pressing against the Divinity School. The sheer weight of their bodies would soon break down the doors. Further along, the King of Insects rose up above the seething mass. Whatever power lay within it disrupted Mallory and Hunter’s thoughts with mind-images of a world swarming with nothing but cockroaches.
‘We’re mad, aren’t we?’ Mallory said quietly.
‘Not mad,’ Hunter replied. ‘We simply don’t have a choice. This is what we do.’ Hunter glanced at Mallory, reading his secret thoughts easily. ‘She’ll be all right.’
‘I’m glad you’re so confident.’
‘She’s as tough as us and probably significantly smarter. She’ll be hiding out somewhere.’
Mallory nodded, but didn’t meet Hunter’s eye. Caitlin led Ceridwen up to the window; the goddess was broken, barely able to cope with the devastation that had been inflicted on her people.
‘We need your help,’ Hunter said bluntly. ‘There aren’t many of your kind left out there, but we need the ones that are. Specifically, we need the Wild Hunt. Can you contact them?’
Dazed, Ceridwen nodded slowly. Hunter explained to her exactly what he required, then sent her off to perform whatever ritual she needed to carry out to reach the Hunt.
Before she left, she paused and turned back. ‘Watch the dogs carefully,’ she said.
‘The Hunt’s dogs? Those weird red and white things?’ Mallory said.
‘Your kind used to call them the Hounds of Annwn, but they are also known as the Hounds of Avalon. Though they appear as hunting dogs to you, that is not what they are. Like many things from the Far Lands, your limited perception gives them a form you can understand.’
Mallory opened his mouth to ask a question about the dogs’ true nature, but Hunter interrupted him. ‘Why should we watch them carefully?’ he asked simply.
‘They know when everything is coming to an end. When all of this — ’ she made a broad gesture ‘- is falling apart. When the time comes, they will band together and their multiplicity of howls will become one — a sound of sadness that will rip into your hearts. It is the cry of dying.’
Ceridwen left and the others returned to the window. ‘I don’t like it that we’re weakened,’ Mallory said. ‘The Five who fought at the Fall clearly have some of the Pendragon Spirit left in them, but it’s not enough. We need the Five who are supposed to be here, standing shoulder to shoulder.’
‘There’s still time,’ Caitlin replied. ‘We need to be united to defeat the Void and we still have no idea where it is.’
‘I wonder who the fifth is,’ Mallory mused. ‘When I was on the road, I met a woman who was in tune with the original Fabulous Beast. She told me that Existence, or whatever you want to call it, had been a bit cannier this time in bringing the latest Five together.’
‘How so?’ Hunter asked, intrigued.
‘Three of us are different this time.’ Mallory peered into the distance through the falling snow, waiting for the Wild Hunt to appear. ‘It was an attempt to mask us from the Void, so that we would have a chance to get together before it wiped us out. Me,’ he looked at Hunter, ‘I’m dead. Died in another world, then was resurrected here. I can’t begin to get my head around that. It’s too big. But the Void still picked up on me pretty quickly. Then there’s one called the Broken Woman…’ He glanced at Caitlin; she nodded.
‘I went over the edge for a while.’ She smiled tightly. ‘Some might say I never came back.’ She tapped her head. ‘Different personalities in here. But the Void sniffed me out quickly as well.’
‘The other one was described to me as the Shadow Mage,’ Mallory continued. ‘I don’t know what that means, but if he or she is still below our radar, maybe that bodes well.’
‘Who could it be?’ Caitlin said. ‘They must have been drawn here. Thackeray? Harvey?’ She shook her head, knowing it was neither of them.
They had no more time to ponder the conundrum, for the Wild Hunt suddenly burst into view, tearing their way through the Lament-Brood like a hurricane of knives. In a matter of seconds, they had cut their way past the King of Insects and reached the Divinity School.
‘No more talking,’ Hunter said. ‘Time to do the business.’
The chaos the Wild Hunt had caused in the ranks of the Lament-Brood prompted the King of Insects into violent activity. The towering creature lurched forward, surrounded by a cloud of wasps and flies that surged out in all directions.
Hunter was the first to drop from the window into the melee, followed swiftly by Mallory and Caitlin. The instant they hit the ground, they struck out for the King of Insects, ruthlessly chopping down any Lament-Brood that fell in their way. Mallory’s sword was a blaze of Blue Fire, lighting the way for the others. Caitlin hacked savagely with her twin axes, while Hunter darted and thrust with power and grace.
In the thick of the transformed warriors, the air of despair was palpable, but Hunter, Mallory and Caitlin kept the sour emotions at bay by sheer force of will.
Within minutes, it became apparent that they would not succeed. Even with the Wild Hunt carving a path for them towards the King of Insects, the Lament-Brood were so numerous that Hunter realized that the three of them would not be able to get back to a position of safety even if they did kill it. They would fall and die there, in the middle of the walking-dead army.
It was not something they had time to consider; their world was confined to inches around their bodies and their lives were counted in seconds as they survived one attack and prepared for the next.
By the time they reached the King of Insects, the creature was in a frenzy. Its massive droning arms thundered, crushing the heads and spines of its own troops as it drove towards the Brothers and Sister of Dragons.
Caitlin was just emerging from the dismembered bodies of two of the Lament-Brood when one of the King’s fists smashed against the side of her head, flinging her yards away. In his peripheral vision, Hunter was convinced that she had been killed by the force of the blow. But a second later she was on her feet, shaking the echoes from her head as she launched herself at the King of Insects in a berserker rage; the Morrigan had come to the fore, raining axe-blows, hacking viciously into the King of Insects’ form.
Hunter lost sight of her as he fought his way around a knot of Lament-Brood. When he surfaced, it was into the path of one of the King of Insects’ gigantic hands. It closed rapidly around his head, hauling him off his feet and high into the air. The memories of the torment he had suffered in Scotland came flooding back. Dry insect bodies squirmed against his face and flies forced their way up his nostrils and into his mouth, the pressure of them increasing inexorably, their buzzing so loud that he thought his head would explode.
And just when he thought his skull would shatter, he was falling. He came down in front of Mallory, whose fiery sword had hacked through the King of Insects’ wrist.
>
Hunter choked and spat out a mouthful of dead flies. ‘Thanks,’ he croaked, but Mallory was already throwing himself into another furious attack.
The three of them fought for long minutes, circling the King of Insects rapidly. They attacked whenever its defences dropped, while at the same time fighting the Lament-Brood, which not even the Wild Hunt could keep at bay.
With exhaustion creeping up on him, Hunter knew that the end was near. Steeling himself for a final burst of effort, he caught sight of a white flash, like sheet lightning, that appeared to emanate from a street away.
He fought on, wondering if it was some optical illusion caused by the patterns left on his retina by Mallory’s flaming sword, or a sign of even more bizarre weather on the way.
Another flash burst brightly at the end of the street, this time unmistakably lightning. Caitlin launched herself on to the King of Insects’ back, ignoring the stings and bites as she clung on with one hand, chopping relentlessly with her remaining axe. Hunter saw her pause mid-strike, drawn by whatever was taking place further down the street.
Another bolt of lightning seared down from the heavens mere yards away. Hunter was blinded by the flash for a split second, and when his eyes cleared there was a heap of charred Lament-Brood corpses all around. It was a miracle it had missed him.
Then events happened in rapid succession. As he fought, Hunter became aware of Lament-Brood bodies churned up into the air as if struck by a powerful machine. They crashed against walls, rained down into the mass all around, taking more down with them.
Something was coming, tearing through the army like a whirlwind. The King of Insects’ bludgeoning attack kept Hunter fully occupied — swarms of insects engulfed him repeatedly before returning to the central form, and those powerful fists swung down like sledgehammers — but his mind raced with one question: friend or foe? Friend or foe? He was exhausted. They couldn’t fight on three fronts.
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