Caoit gave a dismissive snort. “Before the hearths of mortals the stories of the Fianna are told as the stories of Fionn no matter how many others may have played their part in his victories. So it is with the Sidhe. No matter how many others may have played their part, Balo of the Cwn Ulaidh Fianna is still a great hero.” Fixing a wrinkle in her hood with a snap, she returned her attention to the path.
Ahead of them, even Brae had to smile a little at her indignation.
They picked up Balo’s trail on the edge of the Kerry Reeks just as the moon was rising. A light rain had begun to fall, and Brae peered anxiously through the misting darkness but the hound was nowhere in sight.
“Who’d have thought he could move so fast,” Tierney said, shaking his head in wonder. “He’s a ten-year-old dog.”
“The ministrations of the fire-cats of the Ferrishyn Sidhe are not to be treated lightly,” Caoit replied in a sanctimonious tone.
Tierney just blinked at her. “Huh?”
Caoit snorted. “Me lick dog, me make dog stronger,” she snapped.
“Oh. Hey, I have a sore foot—”
“No.”
“But—”
“We all have sore feet,” Isien interrupted. “We should rest for a bit.”
Brae shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Brae—”
“Not yet. I’m not losing his trail in this rain.”
“His trail leads to Killorglin,” Caoit answered. “You won’t lose it.”
“I don’t care. I’m not stopping yet.” Turning, she plunged into the Reeks and after a moment, the others followed with equally resigned expressions.
They finally convinced Brae to stop around midnight after Caoit stepped into a bog. Ears ringing from her blistering scream, Tierney and Cullen carried her to a dry bit of land where she could pull off her boot with a disgusted gesture. As one, the four Fianna, including Brae who was more tired than she wanted to admit, flopped down beside her.
“I hate the Reeks,” Caoit growled.
“So how’d you figure on reaching Killorglin originally,” Brae asked.
“My plan was to go northeast to Lough Leane and follow the river on dry land.”
“That why Balo left you behind?” Cullen asked tactlessly.
Caoit’s eyes narrowed. “Likely,” she snarled, shaking out one sopping mitten. “I may have made some mention in passing about not caring much for snow or rain or bogs. Dogs, they take everything so pissing literally.”
“On that note”—Cullen rose—“I’ll be back in a moment.” He disappeared into the darkness.
“Don’t fall into a bog,” Isien called after him.
“I won’t, Mama.”
They set out at dawn the next morning, doing their best to keep to the patches of thick saxifrage that marked the higher, slightly dryer ground, but after three hours of slogging through marshlands and frozen weeds, Cullen gave an explosive sigh.
“So, Caoit,” he said suddenly, “there’s something I’ve always wondered.”
The girl raised a ruddy eyebrow at him, but gestured that he continue while the others glanced at him suspiciously. Noting the twinkle in his eyes, Brae held her breath.
“Is there really a Goddess that drives a chariot pulled by cats,” he asked, his whole expression one of purely innocent curiosity.
Caoit’s golden eyes narrowed. “There’s something I’ve always wondered,” she asked instead, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Do the faery-hounds of the Fianna really roll in manure like their mortal counterparts?”
Without waiting for an answer, she leaped across a thin, winding stream, clambered onto the opposite bank, and disappeared through a pair of saplings on the other side.
Cullen glanced over at Tierney. “I guess she didn’t really want an answer,” he observed mildly.
Tierney just shrugged. “Cats,” he noted, “have no sense of humor.”
They reached the western edge of the Reeks without further hazardous conversation by noon the next day. A high outcropping of rocks afforded them a view of the entire countryside from the Bay of Dingle to the shores of Lough Leane and they peered down at the village of Killorglin lying at the very mouth of the bay.
“Seems peaceful enough,” Tierney noted.
Brae shook her head, gesturing wordlessly to the east and the miles of ravaged fields crawling with rodents and littered with the bloated corpses of cattle and sheep.
Isien turned to Caoit. “I don’t see—” she began, and then froze as a rank, musty odor came to them on a trail of blood and decay. As one, the five of them looked down to see the giant weasel slink out from a cave far below them. Brae gaped at it.
The creature was huge, twice again the size of the biggest bullock she’d ever seen. It’s pelt was coarse and caked with filth and dried offal, and its powerful furred legs ended in claws as wide and wicked as curved swords. It’s great mouth slavered with blood-filled foam and, as they watched, it caught up the half-eaten body of a sheep, flung it into the air in a spray of rot, and swallowed it in one bite.
Cullen gave an involuntary curse. “Just how did you figure the two of you were going to handle that . . . thing?” he demanded in an incredulous voice.
Caoit flexed her fingers inside her mittens as if she were unsheathing her claws. “Balo was to slay the weasel and I the vermin,” she answered coldly.
“I don’t see Balo.” Tierney noted.
“There he is.” Isien pointed to a tiny figure creeping through the underbrush upwind toward the creature, which thankfully remained unaware of his presence. So far.
Brae shot Caoit an angry glance before throwing one leg over the edge of the outcropping. “Come on,” she growled, “let’s get down there before he gets himself killed.”
“I’ll meet up with you later,” Caoit answered, giving them a wide-eyed look in response to four questioning expressions. “The weasel is your adversary,” she explained impatiently. “The vermin is mine.” She disappeared back the way they had come and Cullen shook his head.
“What was it about cats knowing when and how to fight to the best advantage?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Tierney said, “but I wish we really did have the wisdom to follow her example.”
“Just shut up and get down here,” Brae growled. She scaled the rocks as quickly and as quietly as she could. Once at the bottom, she drew her sword and, just as Balo broke from the underbrush to charge the creature, she drew her sword.
“Diord Fionn!”
Screaming the Fianna’s ancient battle cry, she lunged forward.
They fought the creature for a day and a night, drawing on their otherworldly blood to give them strength. Beside them, Balo fought like a demon, howling and snarling and tearing at it from every angle; never wavering though his fur grew grayer and grayer as the battle continued.
Early on, the villagers had rallied to their aid, but it wasn’t until nearly dawn the next day that the weasel showed any signs of flagging. Twisting and spinning about with lightning speed, it did its share of killing and soon more than the bodies of sheep and cattle littered the ground. But finally Brae risked a slice from one slashing claw that might have opened up her belly to slice through a back hamstring in one blow. The creature screamed in both pain and rage, and stumbling back on three legs, it turned to flee only to come face to face with Balo’s snarling, blood-covered visage. The old hound hurled itself forward in one last, exhausted attack, latching on to the weasel’s throat with a scream of his own. The creature fell backward, jerked its head from side to side in a desperate attempt to get free and the Fianna closed in from all sides. Finally Balo bit down and a great spurt of blood sprayed out from between his jaws. The weasel stiffened, then fell, to lie still on the bloody ground, but only when Brae staggered up to him to catch him in her arms did Balo finally release his grip.
Sunrise found them lying, bloodied and spent, on the beachhead just past Killorglin. The villagers brought them clean water, bandag
es, and food, then retired to deal with the weasel’s corpse. As the smell of burning flesh wafted past them, Cullen, Tierney, and Isien attacked the plates of meat and bread in weary glee, but Brae just sat with Balo’s head cradled in her lap, stroking his muzzle with a worried expression. The old hound had taken a dozen injuries in a dozen places and, after cleaning them as best she could, she shook her head at him in exasperation.
“Foolish animal,” she chided fondly. “Did you honestly think you could take on a monster that size without help?”
As Balo’s tail thumped against the ground, he turned his head to lick her wrist, and she scratched him gently behind one battered ear.
“Yes, of course, I forgive you, just don’t do it again, all right? Who do you think you are, Bran and Sceolan both?”
A shadow passed over them and Brae looked up to see Caoit, her face and hair smeared with blood and tiny bits of fur, her eyes wide and wild, standing over them.
“He thinks he’s Balo of the Cwn Ulaidh Fianna,” she answered with a smile. “The hero of Killorglin.”
“Yes, I imagine he does.” Brae took his muzzle gently in her cupped hands. “And I suppose he is, but he’s also Balo, the old hound of Brae Diardin and he’s going to Anglesey to live out the rest of his life in warmth and safety before he gets himself killed running off on any more ridiculous quests.”
A breath of cold air blew in off the bay and Caoit looked up, her eyes returning to their usual golden brilliance. “There is one more quest that he might set out on, you know,” she said, crouching down beside them. “A quest worthy of such a mighty warrior as he.” When Brae looked up, she gestured at a small coracle pulled up on the pebble-strewn shore nearby. “Far across the sea,” she began in a quiet singsong voice that Brae suddenly recognized from her mother’s cottage long ago. “There lies a magical land where Gods and their hounds hunt for deer and rabbits in dappled woodlands and fish for salmon in deep running rivers. They race through groves of oak and rowan trees and bound through surf along sandy strands: the magical land of everlasting youth.”
Brae blinked. “Balo could go to Tir na n’Og?”
Caoit blinked back at her. “Why not?” she demanded. “Are not the greatest of all heroes granted the gift of eternal life? And hasn’t Balo proved himself to be just that? He could run and play on the shining shores as one of Danu’s own hunting pack, warm and safe and young forever. But only if you let him, only if you release him.” She stood. “You have a little time to think about it,” she said. “The tide can wait a bit and I”—she shook a piece of rodent brains off her hand with a disgusted expression—“have to bathe.”
An hour later, Brae laid Balo very gently into the coracle, her eyes brimming over with tears. As he settled onto a soft woolen blanket in the bottom, she reached down and undid his old leather collar.
“I’ll miss you more than anything,” she said thickly, taking his gray muzzle in her hands. “But maybe if I can manage to be as brave and as loyal as you, I might join you there one day. Who knows.”
She straightened as Caoit, clean and sleekly groomed, flowed into the boat beside him. “Maybe,” the girl allowed in a generous tone. “If anyone can do it I suppose a faery-hound can.”
Looking out at the tide, Brae nodded. “Well, I guess this is good-bye then, boy. It’s going to seem awfully lonely from now on hunting without a brindle hound by my side.”
Brae stepped back, but as Balo began to whine, she moved forward again. Caoit rolled her eyes.
“Yes, of course I was going to tell her. Dogs, honestly!” She turned, an expression of annoyance in her golden eyes.
“You really don’t think he’d let you fumble about on your own, do you? In the spring return to Glencolumb kille in Donegal. In a whitewashed cottage overlooking the site of Balo’s great victory over Dolar Durba’s giant you will find a brindle whelp ready to join the Cwn Ulaidh Fianna and hunt by Brae Diardin’s side.” As the coracle began to back slowly into the rising water, she cocked her head to one side. “You can name it Balo if you like, I suppose,” she said. “But it’s going to be a female.”
“I could name it Caoit then,” Brae offered.
The girl growled low in her throat. “Give a cat’s name to a dog if you dare,” she warned, “but don’t be surprised to find yourself overwhelmed with vermin next year. We don’t take such insults lightly.”
“Cats have no sense of humor.”
“Dogs have no sense of danger.”
As the coracle moved farther out into the bay, Caoit shrugged out of her clothes, and suddenly the red and white creature from the hawthorn tree stared out across the waves. Beside her, a brindle hound, both young and strong, barked out his promise to see Brae again someday and then the coracle slowly disappeared, taking the fire-cat, Caoit of the Ferrishyn Sidhe, and the mortal hound, Balo of the Cwn Ulaidh Fianna, Hero of Killorglin, to Tir na n’Og.
GOBLIN LULLABY
Jim C. Hines
Jim C. Hines made his first pro fiction sale in 1998 with a story called “Blade of the Bunny,” that seems to have set the tone for his writing career. His work has since appeared in over twenty-five magazines and anthologies. His fantasy novel GoblinQuest will be published by DAW in November 2006, with a sequel, Goblin Hero, to follow in 2007. He is currently hard at work on a third book in the series. Jim lives in Michigan with his wife and two children. He would like to dedicate “Goblin Lullaby” to his four-month-old son Jamie, whose presence was . . . inspirational, to say the least.
Lay your head down and close your eyes.
Make no sound as you rest,
for the faintest snores or cries
bring tunnel cats to chew your flesh.
From the goblin lullaby “Sleep in Silence”
THE DRUMS STARTED AGAIN just as Grell was setting the last of the newborns in the oversize wooden crib at the back of the nursery cave. She clenched her teeth as she watched the baby goblin’s blue face wrinkle in protest. With one hand, she readied a sugar-knot, a bit of hard honey candy knotted in cloth. The instant the drooling mouth opened, she jammed the sugar-knot inside.
The swaddled goblin baby started and opened her eyes, but the sugar-knot worked. Instead of screaming, she began to suck herself back to sleep . . . even as the other fourteen newborns crammed into the crib stirred and fussed. Fifteen if you counted the runt Jig, currently harnessed in a makeshift sling against Grell’s chest. Normally the goblins would have left him on the surface to die, but another nursery worker named Kralk had bet Grell a month of diaper cleaning that Jig wouldn’t survive long enough to see the next full moon. The pale, wrinkled baby hadn’t left Grell’s sight since.
“Stupid war drums,” Grell muttered. “Might as well send a messenger to the enemy, screaming ‘Ready your weapons, because another swarm of goblins is preparing to charge in like idiots!’ ” She crossed the nursery, gathering more sugar-knots from the shelves and shoving them into the pockets on either side of her heavily stained apron. Lanterns on the floor gave off green light and filled the obsidian-walled cave with the scent of fermented plant oils and distilled mushrooms. Grell always added mushrooms to the mix. On most nights, the sour smell seemed to help the babies sleep, but not tonight.
Kralk, the only other so-called adult in the nursery cave, gave a lazy shrug. Ill-fitting metal plates rang softly on her forearms. Piecemeal armor also protected her legs from the overeager attacks of the goblins who were old enough to walk. “The warriors say it gives them strength and brings fear to their enemies.”
“These are the same warriors who end up bleeding all over the mountain every time another band of adventurers comes a-questing?” Grell snapped. She jabbed the end of her cane into Kralk’s shoulder. “Go take care of the older ones before they get all excited. Braf is getting his adult fangs, and he’s chewing everything that moves.” Last night she had caught Braf gnawing one leg of the crib. Only a well-placed whack with Grell’s cane had stopped him from chewing all the way through.
/> Grell began shoving sugar-knots into the mouths of the other babies. She caught herself moving with the rhythm of the war drum, which only annoyed her further.
Three days the goblins had been fighting this latest group of adventurers. Three days of crying babies and cranky toddlers. Three days without a decent night’s sleep. Her eyes were gritty, her joints ached, and the next time she caught Kralk sitting on that bucket sucking candy from the children’s sugar-knots, Grell was going to ram her cane down her throat.
No . . . Grell had a better idea. Shoving the rest of the sugar-knots into her pocket, she turned away from the crib and headed for the door out of the nursery. The low wooden door was the heaviest, sturdiest door in the goblin lair, not out of concern for the safety of the children, but to muffle the sounds from the nursery.
“Where are you going?” Kralk shouted, loud enough to startle the few babies who had stopped crying.
“To shut those fools up,” Grell said, snatching one of the lanterns. She wrapped an extra blanket over her shoulder, tying the ends around Jig’s sling. She took a well-patched sack and brushed the cobwebs from the strap. Into this she shoved a few rags, a fresh skin of milk, and a teething stick. She shifted her cane to her other hand as she slipped the strap over one shoulder, adjusting Jig’s sling to balance it out. The pain in her lower back made her grimace.
“Why don’t you leave Jig here?” Kralk called.
Grell spat. “And wipe your share of arses for a month when I come back and find him ‘mysteriously’ dead? No thanks.” She slammed her cane against the rock, rousing the babies into even louder crying fits. The delightful sound of Kralk’s curses followed her as she slipped into the tunnel to the main lair.
Nobody challenged Grell as she made her way through the lair and out of the mountain. She could move quietly when she wanted, and most of the warriors were busy getting themselves slaughtered. When she reached the crumbling overhang where the goblin lair opened to the rest of the world, she extinguished the lantern and hid it behind a small bush. The sun was starting to rise, turning the skies pink and making her eyes water.
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