by CE Murphy
Stone cracked behind Cernunnos like it had heard me calling on it. A thin track of sunlight spilled through from way up above, lighting his ashy hair to silver and making his budding horns stand out in sharp relief. Brigid gasped and I looked her way. She held her hands out, fire blazing down from the tattoos banding her upper arms, not burning her. She was a conduit, not a martyr.
Wind howled down the crack in the stone, bringing fresh air that swept away the coal-thick taste in the cavern. The kid leaned into it with a fierce grin, and all of a sudden I heard his blood rushing like it was water on a shore. It made sense: water wore everything away, even immortality, an’ the kid was what tied Cernunnos to a mortal cycle. The idea flitted away, letting me concentrate on what I had to say. The others were chanting now, repeating what I’d said, and I threw everything I had at the cauldron. “In Cernunnos’ name I set this spell, and swear we four will hold it well. By these words and by our will, by our power and by our skill, we bind thee for eternity.”
Power slammed out of all four of us an’ crashed against the cauldron. It lit up in every color we carried, silver and white, red an’ gold, an’ a hundred shades of green from the god and the kid. Fire burned a pattern in it, an’ water ran in crashing waves all around. Time was fluid and liquid, splashing through and over everything, an’ earth grounded the thing. Then quick as a flash it was gone, but sunlight caught the cauldron’s curve. In it I Saw all the magic we’d just poured in, an’ I Saw how black rage boiled inside the cauldron but couldn’t get out. Every one of us staggered, exhausted, but after a couple seconds Cernunnos lifted his head to bare a grin like I never wanted ta see again. I didn’t notice mosta the time, but his teeth were pointed like a predator’s, an’ right then he looked like he was gonna go for a throat.
He didn’t, though. He just grinned, and through that grin, hissed, “He comes. We must not be here when the battle meets, else he will hold the advantage. Ride. Ride!”
CHAPTER FIVE
We burst outta the hellmouth like the Hunt was after us, not like we were them at all, an’ careened through the sky with dogs howling and birds screeching and all of us roaring from the bottoms of our souls. Roaring defiance at the dark god that was coming to mow us down, roaring triumph at having bound his cauldron into uselessness, roaring out our fear and our hope and our determination to go down like warriors. I felt like a kid again, a damned dumb kid back in Korea, usin’ my voice to scare away my own fears ‘cause I knew I’d never scare the enemy otherwise.
Brigid rode beside me, the boy tucked between her and the horse’s neck. She wore a leather breast plate over her white robes like it wasn’t worth commenting on that it had just appeared outta nowhere. But then, Jo conjured the sword I was currently wearing outta nowhere all the time, so it prob’ly wasn’t worth commenting on. I gave a shout meant to be a question. She glanced at the kid, yelled, “It’s to safety I’ll bring him now!” and peeled away from the rest of the Hunt, the gold mare thundering through the sky.
Cernunnos tried ta look like he wasn’t watching them go, but I caught him glancing after them anyway. He scowled. I shrugged, and under the howl of the Hunt, said, “You gotta do what you can to keep ‘em safe, Horns. It don’t always work, but we gotta try.”
“I do not need your understanding.”
“You got it anyway.” That was as much time for talk as we had, ‘cause all of a sudden we were above Knocknaree, an’ there was a hell of a fight going on below.
I’d run across a couple of demons in my time. Some of ‘em Joanne had unloosed on Seattle, and another one we’d gone hunting. That one had been slippery, half in this world and half outta it. The army of monsters down below looked more like the first set: conjured up outta nightmares, but solid as the earth itself. I recognized a lot of ‘em, just like anybody with a working knowledge of European mythology would. There was everything from minotaurs to dragons and anything you cared to think about in between: chimeras and griffins, centaurs an’ trolls, giants and little people.
It was easy to tell which side was whose, ‘cause the Morrígan was leading the bad guys, and I wasn’t gonna forget her any time soon. Her black hair was tied back just like Brigid’s, an’ she wore black armor over her blue robes. Blood had been painted over the tattoos on her arms, making ‘em shine purple. Only two ravens were on her shoulders, but not ‘cause she’d killed one to escape Jo. The third had come back to life, or its spirit had been bound to a new shape or something, ‘cause the black horse she rode was just about feathered, an’ when it screamed it had a raven’s voice. Every time it cried, the ranks of monsters came together a little more.
But not all the living myths were behind her. A whole bunch were on our side. Aos sí rode centaurs into battle. Others were just standing and fighting, blades so fast and bright I couldn’t see ‘em as more than a blur even with the borrowed Sight. Ichor and gore splattered all over the place. A cat-like critter with nine lashing tails, all of ‘em on fire, jumped from one bad guy to another, disemboweling ‘em and leaving them to die messily. A ghost-colored horse without a rider slipped through places too small for a mouse, an’ kicked the brains outta the folks taking up its space when it stepped out again. I wondered if Imelda could do that, but she snorted. I took it as a no, and patted her neck right before we hit the ground and joined the fight.
There was no wasting time struggling toward the front lines. We crashed into them, horses and hounds smashing down from the air. Rooks flew at the Morrígan’s ravens, dozens against two. Black feathers rose and fell on the fight’s heat, birds shrieking loud enough to be heard over the sounds of swords and hooves. The dogs went through Morrígan’s army like a pack of wolves, hamstringing and taking out throats, then moving on like they’d come back later for the feast. I drew Jo’s rapier, and for a while the world was nothing but tryin’ ta survive.
War ain’t a straight picture in the mind. It ain’t the battlefield they show in movies, where things make a kinda macabre sense. All it is is flashes, moments when something far away comes crystal clear, or something up close burns itself into your memory forever. It’s noise, even if horses and monsters and swords made a whole different kinda noise than the guns I’d heard in Korea. The screams were still the same, and dead was dead no matter if you got killed by a bullet or an ax. A lotta the smells were the same too, blood and dirt and the purity of fresh air when wind blew some of the stink away. There was the smell of horses here, too, and nothing of gunpowder, but it was close enough to remind me of things I tried not ta think about.
I saw bits of what was going on around me. People an’ creatures dying, plenty of ‘em thanks to me. Every time one of ‘em died I thought about the cauldron, and imagined it being unbound. If we lost, the spell we’d put on the thing would get broken, and the Master would bring every single critter who died here back to life.
It was a hell of a reason to fight, the idea we were keeping the world from getting overrun by zombies. I figured we had to win, ‘cause on my end of time we weren’t all zombies, but knowing that didn’t make the fight any less urgent. My arm got heavy after all, even if the sword was magic, an’ time and again I was grateful to Brigid, ‘cause I was pretty sure she’d pulled our army together and got ‘em up here on this hilltop to meet the Morrígan’s army before it got to us and the cauldron. We were better off fighting in the open daylight instead of the twists and dark tunnels where the cauldron was hidden. I reminded myself of that every minute, an’ breathed deep, an’ once in a while felt a crazy grin stretch my face. I was on the wrong end of time fighting a battle for the future, an’ I might die any time but if I did, it was a damned fine way to go out.
The riders of the Hunt spread out from each other, all of ‘em finding a stretch of battlefield to call their own, but all of ‘em had the same look of ferocious glee smeared across their faces. It wasn’t so much joy in killing as it was joy in living on the edge.
Of all of ‘em, Cernunnos was the only one without that smile. He was
fighting his way back to the front, heading for the one enemy combatant that mattered. I turned Imelda to follow him, focusing hard on staying alive. More’n once I knew it was the chain mail under my shirt keeping me that way. The sword was easier to use than I expected, my arm not getting tired the way it should. I turned the Sight on the blade and saw a dull blue glow, like even through the distance an’ the years, Jo’s magic was holding on.
It wasn’t more’n half a second I’d taken my eyes off the fight, but it was enough. A whistle caught my attention an’ I looked up to see a thing about eleven feet tall and branchy like an evil Ent swinging a massive tree club at my thick skull.
A bolt of lightning stopped it. Stopped it and everything else within five yards, too. I couldn’t see anything for a couple seconds, the world whited out from standing too close to the light, but the stink of burned flesh rose up, and when my vision cleared it was just me and Imelda in a smoking black circle.
Me and Imelda and Brigid.
I hadn’t even seen her coming. She was only just now touching down, the gold mare carrying her and her alone. There were sparks flying off her hands, bits of lightning left over, an’ for a couple seconds my heart took a break from beating. Joanne pulled down a lotta mojo, but she’d never thrown lightning, an’ I didn’t know if somebody human could do that at all. Made me real aware that Brigid wasn’t human, even if she mostly looked it. Her horse stopped over the tree creature’s ruin, Brigid with her head bowed, breath coming hard and blood dripping from her sword. She lifted her eyes, as much fire in ‘em as in Cernunnos’s, and she saluted me in greeting. I straightened up as tall as I could, feelin’ more weight from that salute than anything I’d given or received in Korea. She looked pleased.
Then the respite was over and the fight was on us again. She was right-handed an’ I was a lefty, so we covered each other’s backs and hacked down everything from normal-looking people to stone-footed giants that rose right up outta the earth itself. The rapier never lost its edge, not even when it slammed into granite so hard it sent shakes up my arm. One of the giants finally came up right between us, knocking our horses away from each other. I didn’t see her again after that.
All at once I was fighting behind Cernunnos, though. I got a look at him, and wanted to take another. He wasn’t even pretending to be human anymore. That crown of antlers had burst through, ivory wrapping around a skull distorted way outta shape. Not quite a full-on stag, but something so close to it that the blazing green eyes were disturbing in its face. So was the way his gums pulled back from teeth that shouldn’t be sharp, but were. His neck an’ shoulders were thicker, and his arms brawnier. He was using the short silver sword like a machete, hackin’ down everything within reach. There were too damned many of ‘em, that was all. Just enough to keep him away from the Morrígan, an’ I didn’t think that was luck on her part.
I started feeling a grin like the rest of the Hunt was wearing stretch over my own face. I brought Imelda around so we could flank the Master’s right-hand doll. Nobody was looking out for the old man on the grey mare. I slipped through the spaces up to the Morrígan as easy as I’d seen the pooka doing earlier.
Truth was, I expected it all to go to hell. I’d seen Jo fight the Morrígan She was faster and stronger than any human could be, and had a whole lotta years of practice under her belt. No way could I expect to break through her guard, and no way could somebody not have her back.
Except that was thinking like a good guy. That was thinking like someone with people to live for, instead of just a cause. That was thinking like somebody who didn’t want the world to end, insteada like somebody doing her damnedest to end it. Her army was there to kill Brigid’s, not to watch out for each other. Her ravens spun away across the sky, diving at some kinda choice pickings, and I seized the moment.
Maybe her black-feathered horse heard me coming. Maybe she finally saw Cernunnos and decided he was the best target on the field. Maybe a tree giant bashed into Imelda and knocked us one step the wrong way. I dunno. But insteada Jo’s rapier sliding through the Morrígan’s exposed back, she was half a foot outta line with me when I struck. I scraped a chunk of leather armor an’ rib flesh off her body, but it wasn’t a killing blow.
An’ that’s when things did go to hell.
The Morrígan forgot about Cernunnos and turned on me, screaming like a banshee the whole while. She was bleeding pretty good, her whole left side a torn-up mess, but there was madness in her eyes and she moved like she didn’t feel the pain. Her sword hammered against the rapier. Imelda’s quick feet kept me from getting dead, but there were a whole lotta bad guys pressed all around and nowhere friendly to go. I ducked a sword swing and lunged with the rapier again, scoring a tiny red line that she gave back in spades. My shirt was a cut-up mess, an’ only the chain mail armor was keeping me alive. Imelda backed up another couple of steps. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I was gonna make it outta there in one piece.
When I looked back, the Morrígan was hanging off Cernunnos’s sword like a side of beef. He’d run her clean through, just what I’d been tryin’ ta do, except no way could I have lifted her toward the sky an’ howled triumph, too. I was a tough old coot, but nothing like that. The Morrígan wasn’t dead yet, still kicking and clawing at the sky as Cernunnos shook his raised arms and twisted the sword inside her.
The whole fight came to a stop under the sound of Cernunnos’s howling. It went out in a ripple around us, stillness washing over everybody. I kicked Imelda and she bounced around the Morrígan’s raven-black horse, getting us nice and close to the one guy everybody was about to try an’ kill. The other riders of the Hunt moved in too, ‘til we’d closed ranks around Cernunnos like some kinda honor guard.
Brigid’s army started cheering. Low at first, like they couldn’t hardly believe what they were seeing, and then louder and louder until they were lifting the clouds right outta the sky. Back in the day, when I’d played ball, a time or two I’d made a great interception or tackle that brought the crowd to its feet. I’d thought I’d known was it was like to be worshiped, feeling that energy comin’ off the fans. It was nothing, nothing at all, to the uplifting power of a triumphant army.
But the Morrígan’s army stayed quiet, an’ that was worse. Defeat could cry out as loud, maybe louder, than victory. Defeat was being wounded, broken in spirit, an’ it had a voice to it that winning couldn’t match. The Morrígan’s army didn’t have a voice at all, just a silence that rolled over the noise until everybody was quiet again after all. Focused silence, all of it concentrating on the Morrígan, dangling but not dead on Cernunnos’s sword. She was still reaching for the sky, an’ her whole army was looking where she was pointing.
Way too slowly, way too late, I looked too.
The blue was boiling, ruptures and bubbles letting starlight break through even in the middle’a the day. Clouds were coming together, darkening the sun, and a path of night fell outta the stars. Creatures like I’d never seen came tumbling down the path, falling like angels without wings. They cut the sky apart with screams, screams like all hope was lost an’ all that was left to them was vengeance. I only knew one story that fit that kinda pain. I dragged my eyes to the front of the oncoming madness, whispering words I knew were true: “And there before them rides a pale horse. Its rider’s name is Death, and Hell doth follow close behind.”
CHAPTER SIX
Brigid’s army scattered. Couldn’t say I blamed ‘em, but the Hunt held its ground while the Master came bearing down on us. Cernunnos said, “He is not,” so quiet I had ta look at him. He said, “He is not your death on a pale horse, old man, not the way you mean as you say it now. He is no devil as your young faith would have him be, nor are they angels who ride with him. Broken spirits, perhaps, and lost, but there was no War in Heaven fought and lost for the love of your god. He is no more death on a pale horse than I am, and perhaps less.”
“Yeah? Then what the hell is he?”
“A devourer, perhaps.
” Cernunnos was still holding the Morrígan up, an’ his attention was all for the riders in the sky. “The devourer, perhaps—”
I muttered, “I like that,” under my breath. Devourer sounded like something that might take a bite outta me, but that sat better than the idea of him being my lord and master.
Cernunnos kept talking. I shut up and listened, ‘cause even with the amazing crazy life I’d led the last year, I didn’t often get to hear a god wax philosophical. “—for he has tasted gods and they have failed before him. He is an ending to the souls he takes, swallowing their essence so it feeds only himself, and gives nothing back to the boundless universe.”
“Ain’t that kinda what death is?”
Cernunnos looked at me, green fire bright in his eyes. “After all you have seen at Joanne’s side, Master Muldoon, do you truly believe that all I offer to those who ride with me is an eternal nothingness? That any faith which sends a guide, be it a rider or a reaper or a ferryman, to walk a soul through the veil, has nothing to offer on the other side?”
I guessed my face said it all, ‘cause a sly grin curled one corner of Horns’s mouth before he nodded toward the oncoming rider. “Let us face the Devourer together, Master Muldoon, and—”
“Give him a taste of his own medicine?”
“Send him mewling back to his caverns like a whipped dog,” the god agreed. An eager growl rumbled through the Hunt, men an’ hounds alike. I changed my grip on Jo’s sword, getting ready to use it again. Cernunnos’s stallion stomped a couple times an’ the whole damned Hunt took to the skies, ready to meet the Devourer on his own turf. I barked a laugh, surprised even though I shouldn’t have been, and bent low over Imelda’s neck to keep the wind from tearing tears from my eyes. When we were good and high, high enough for Cernunnos to be sure he’d gotten the Devourer’s attention, he shook the Morrígan off his sword.