by Robin Jarvis
The squirrel looked quickly at the band of black squirrels who alone had stood their ground. Under Warden Mugwort’s orders they were already stringing their bows and the arrows of Coll Regalis went singing into the feathery hordes.
Recovering from the surprise attack, many of the other squirrels were regrouping and a legion of bats had managed to rise into the air to deal with the infernal birds in their own element. And so the bloodiest of all battles commenced.
High above them, Morwenna laughed to herself; the foes of Hobb had not seen the full might of her followers yet. She raised her claw to give the signal and at once the terror of her enemies doubled.
All about the hilltop, a sea of fiery faces reared—flames dripping from their gaping mouths. A horrendous mass of evil creatures flourished their Hobb lanterns and came charging forward, screaming foul oaths and curses.
Before the squirrels or bats knew what was happening, the ravening tide was upon them. Rats without number surged at the squirrels with poisoned spears in their claws and daggers clenched in their sharpened teeth. Swords rang and shields buckled, maces crunched into skulls and arrows plunged through skin and hide.
In the air, the jackdaws and ravens flew against the Knights of the Moon in a blizzard of feathers and huge rooks tore at the screechmasks with claws as bitter as steel and just as deadly.
Surrounded by the ringing battle, Vesper remained on the ground, thrusting his knife into any Hobber that leapt before him. Tirelessly he fought, parrying the terrible strokes which lunged at his flesh and slicing where he could in defence. At his side Warden Mugwort swung his sword, notching it on the iron breast-plate of a vile hedgehog who winded the squirrel by a swift blow to the stomach. Mugwort crumpled in two and the gleeful creature raised its mace to dash in his brains.
But Vesper rushed in and stabbed the Hobber in the side. The warden gave him a grateful look, then wielded his sword more furiously than ever and cut a bloody swathe through the invaders. Side by side, the age-old rivals of bat and squirrel fought against the true enemies of light and reason, and in those desperate moments the rift between the two races was forgotten.
As the horrific battle raged about her, Ysabelle stared at the uppermost branches of the Hallowed Oak. There Morwenna haughtily shrieked her commands, instructing the children of the Raith Sidhe and guiding them towards the inevitable victory.
A wintry calm entered Ysabelle’s soul as her hatred for that artful traitor swelled and she knew what must be done. Swiftly she ran to the great entrance, leaving her nurse to patter after her.
“M’lady!” Griselda squeaked. “Whither art thou going? Come back!”
Through the grand hall Ysabelle stormed, almost flying up the staircase which spiralled inside the gigantic trunk of the mighty tree.
At the Starwife’s bedchamber, the maiden hesitated. The shutters of the window had been thrown wide open and in an instant she had crossed the room and gazed out.
Below her all was chaos. Her army was beleaguered on every side. The number of Hobbers was beyond anything she had imagined and the flames of their lanterns formed a great ring of fire about the squirrels. In the sky, the carrion birds were revelling in the deaths of countless bats. The Knights of the Moon were no match for the unbounded hordes that flew against them and their battered bodies fell into the confusion beneath.
Ysabelle lifted her eyes from the sorrow around her, up to where a branch twisted gracefully from the tapering trunk and upon which a tall, cloaked figure stood.
Hurriedly the maiden clambered out of the window and, clinging to the bark, began to climb. With the ground dwindling into the distance beneath her, she pulled herself up until the bough was directly over her head. Pausing only to catch her breath, and with the rumble of the battle rioting in her ears, she caught hold of the graceful projection and swung herself round—expertly leaping up until her feet were planted firmly on the branch.
Not far away, standing aloof amid the rustling twigs and new budding leaves, Morwenna’s heavily lidded eyes shone across to her.
“My beautiful emeralds must be sadly disappointed,” she said, “I was so hoping they would find you to their taste.”
Ysabelle edged along the bough. “The amulet!” she demanded. “Give it to me!”
The other wrinkled her snout in disdain. “The audacity of the whelp,” she hissed, “is that the courtesy due to the Starwife?”
“Thou art no Handmaiden of Orion!” denounced Ysabelle, staring at the tarnished acorn. “Why! You have not brought it to the Starglass!”
Morwenna’s claws clutched at the acorn. “Alas,” she admitted, “that much is true, yet there was a reason.” She peered down at the seething forces far below and gave a throaty laugh. “But the purpose of that hath now been achieved,” she announced, “the worshippers of Hobb are all here. See how they swamp thy meagre brigands. The children of the unholy darkness shall rout thy friends and trample them under foot and claw. A fine, gorging feast shall they enjoy. This blessed hill will become a mountain of the dead—for corpses too numerous to count shall be piled here.”
Stealing a glance at Ysabelle, she sniggered. “Now the time has come for me to join the silver with the Glass. The spells of smothering have served their purpose.”
Morwenna strode over the branch, her steps deliberately heavy and the precarious road swayed alarmingly.
“Thou art standing in mine way, peasant girl,” she purred, causing the bough to shudder even more, “am I to hurl thee from this deadly place?”
Ysabelle staggered backwards as the branch bucked and jerked. “I shall not let you take up the Starwifeship!” she shouted.
“Then thy bones will be shattered against the tree as thy body plummets into the midst of thy misguided and foolhardy companions below.”
Morwenna advanced, her hooded eyes flaming as brightly as any Hobb lantern. With her cloak billowing in the high breezes, she raised her claws and stepped nearer.
Suddenly a pouch bomber came shooting beneath the branch, pursued by a screeching gore crow. The bat swerved, veering around the enormous trunk, but the bird tore unerringly down and before the Moonrider could check himself, they collided and smashed into the side of the tree.
A tremendous explosion ripped through the bark as the fire-eggs the bat carried burst into devouring flame.
Ysabelle was thrown off balance and almost fell to her doom. But as the fierce ball of flame scorched the leaves behind her and leapt into the midnight sky, the priestess of Mabb came steadily closer. “The end of all that you find good is here,” she said softly.
The maiden backed away, then Morwenna gasped and her claws flew to the amulet about her neck.
“It burns!” she shrieked. “The silver burns!”
Ysabelle stared in horror as a stream of acrid smoke poured from Morwenna’s fist. The squirrel writhed in pain and tore her claw from the acorn. “What is happening?” she whined. “The blood-stains—they swirl and move over its surface! The amulet glows like an ember!”
“No,” Ysabelle muttered, “please no.”
A shrill scream issued from the hilltop, cutting through the uproar and the sounds of death that filled the night.
Through the fire and smoke, the two squirrels stared down, the battle was floundering, the Hobbers were hastening from the fray, hotly pursued by the royal guards.
A mad fear seemed to have dismayed them all and the fighting ceased as they cleared a wide space before the Hallowed Oak as if horribly afraid of some new, unseen terror.
As Ysabelle watched an ugly crack streaked over the ground and a hiss of sulphurous steam gushed from its depths. Morwenna put her claws together and held them to her mouth, trembling with anticipation.
From deep beneath the earth a vile roar came bellowing and in the sky the carrion birds squawked in fear and sought safety amid the concealing foliage of the Hallowed Oak’s branches. As the trumpeting roar reverberated across the heavens, the Knights of the Moon hovered in the air and their
screechmasks gazed down in bewilderment. The frightful shriek pierced Ysabelle’s spirit and she almost fell from her lofty perch in dread of that familiar sound. She called to the Green for mercy.
“But it is only the second night,” she cried, “not so soon—not so soon!”
The hideous, blaring roars grew louder until every creature stopped its ears and the hill shook beneath them. Jets of sulphur blasted from the fissures which now gaped before the mighty tree and the oak shivered from the lowest root to the topmost branch.
Ysabelle fell back against the trunk and wept dearly as the Hallowed Oak quivered uncontrollably and her eyes stared at the soil which blistered and bulged through the spitting fumes.
“My Lord is coming,” exalted Morwenna, the acorn gleaming around her neck, singeing the fur at her throat. “His dark majesty approaches!”
From the steaming earth—to the terror of all—the god of the rats, the Lord of the Raith Sidhe, slowly emerged.
Two massive horns punctured the tormented ground as the Master of the Pit reared into the waking world and the roots of the mighty tree flew apart as he crashed through them.
All around the hill the Hobbers screamed as the huge head rose before them, blurred and shimmering behind a screen of vicious heat that incessantly poured from the unlit, lower regions of the earth. Lanterns wrought in his venomous image were thrown down as the rats tore at their hair and writhed in anguish at the malignant spectacle which manifested before them. Then, their Lord’s fiendish eyes blazed in their direction and many terrified creatures slew themselves to escape his awful countenance.
Vesper recoiled and staggered into Warden Mugwort. Fear had seized them both—for the face which rose from the soil and glimmered through the heat haze was a vision of pure evil.
The horns that twisted from the forehead of the titanic apparition curved high into the night and even from where he stood, Vesper could see they were steeped in blood. A matted tangle of fiery-red hair grew between the horns, forming a phosphorescent mane about the contorted, hellish head.
Beneath the wiry brows which arched into barbed points of ginger bristle, Hobb’s eyes balefully shone on the world which had been denied him for so long. His pupils were as dark as the bottom-most pit and flames of war rimmed them, piercing into the hearts of the cowering onlookers, inspiring them with dread and despair.
Bellowing roars boomed from his gaping maw. It was a vast tunnel of flesh, edged by long yellow fangs and the spittle which poured from the dark blue lips was the colour of blood.
The immense, rat-shaped fiend drew himself further from the ground. A garland of skulls hung about his neck and as he towered over the hilltop, a forked tail came ripping through the ashes and lashed about the oak tree, stripping the bark from the trunk and splintering the great doors of the entrance.
Out from the Pit the Lord of the Raith Sidhe climbed, his cloven hoofs stamping on the earth and, with his head thrown back, he beat his claws upon his chest—free at last.
The Hallowed Oak gave an ominous groan and jagged splits ripped through the trunk as the gigantic tail pounded it and the poisonous fumes ate into the tree’s fibres.
In the upper branches, Ysabelle turned her face from the awful vision and gripped the bark desperately as the tree shook and trembled.
Morwenna was jubilant; gazing down as the two horns came rearing up, she threw her arms open in greeting. “Welcome, My Lord!” she shouted. “Thy servant has prepared the way for thee. Welcome to the unhappy world once again!”
The curling, tangled mane rose before the cloaked squirrel and behind the shimmering haze, the fire-rimmed eyes lifted high overhead as she made a humble bow.
Ysabelle howled when she beheld that terrifying face; the stench of Hades flowed from the open maw and the light from the infernal gaze bathed the branch a lurid crimson.
With the amulet blazing at her throat, Morwenna laughed. “I have done this!” she declared. “For thy unholy glory and for that of thy consort—my Lady Mabb. I have worked unceasingly to bring this moment into being.”
The terrible mouth of the Lord Hobb stretched into a macabre grin and the malevolent fires burning in those eyes grew brighter than ever as slyly they swivelled from Morwenna to Ysabelle.
A hideously gnarled claw reached up and Ysabelle screamed. This was it, Wendel’s curse had come true, Hobb was going to claim her.
Morwenna cackled as the misshapen talons came groping through the choking, sulphurous air. “Send her to the Pit!” she squealed. “Let her know the misery of thy imprisonment and through eternity suffer a thousand torments!”
Ysabelle cringed from the huge claw and Morwenna made to bow again, but something was wrong; Hobb was not reaching for the maiden—but for her.
“No,” she shrieked, “I am the one who released you!”
Terrified, she realised her mistake and tried to tear the symbol of the Starwife from her neck. It was the power of the acorn which had summoned her diabolic master, and by invoking his dreaded name, his own high priest had cursed the bearer of the amulet.
In her horror, Morwenna fumbled with the chain but it was too late and she could not remove it. A fetid reek blew upon her as the ghastly head drew near and the unclean claw closed about her cloaked body.
The priestess screamed when the talons squeezed. “You are mistaken, Lord!” she ranted. “Spare me!”
With imploring squeals still on her lips, Morwenna was plucked from the branch and dragged into the swirling heats, her limbs flailing in the cloying fumes until she was brought before the demon’s jaws.
Screeching, she threw up her arms, but her earthly life was over. The fiery eyes mocked her and from the dark throat a cloud of sulphur blasted the struggling figure in the fiend’s grasp.
Morwenna’s screams cut the night as sheets of flame tore through the choking fumes.
The shrieks of the treacherous squirrel died, as her body crackled and burned—writhing in the ghastly furnace.
When the noxious fog began to clear, only ashes and smoking dust remained in her Lord’s evil grasp, and an empty black cloak twirled forlornly on the breeze until it snagged on the nearby branches.
Ysabelle’s heart banged against her rib cage. It was Morwenna’s soul which had been sent to the far reaches of the Pit. Gazing at the cloak which smouldered close by, she knew that that fate had been meant for her. Then the squirrel’s eyes caught something bright spinning through the air like a falling star and she stared impotently as the silver acorn dropped to the ground.
Now Hobb turned his attention to her.
With the light of the underworld radiating from those baleful eyes, he blew Morwenna’s ashes from his claw and his putrid breath smote Ysabelle as if she had been struck a violent blow.
The squirrel almost fainted dead away, but the glare of that foul apparition held her and she could only balk as the talons reached towards the branch once more.
Suddenly a draught ruffled her fur and Vesper’s voice came shouting from above.
“Hold onto me!” he cried.
Before Hobb could snatch at her the squirrel had gone. A fierce bellow issued from the immense nightmare as he saw a young bat bear his second victim into the sky and out of danger.
But now the night was filled with angry voices, as the Knights of the Moon showed their mettle and zoomed towards the rat god’s monstrous head, mustering their forces above him.
Before his very face they flew, striking with their gauntlets at the blood-matted fur and slashing the foul flesh of his venom dripping snout.
“In the name of the Lady!” they called defiantly.
The Lord Hobb rained poison and fire upon them and many bats were shot down, spinning helplessly in screaming bundles of flame that exploded when they hit the ground. Yet still the others harried the deadly creature that dwarfed the blessed hill, daring to bite him with their steel talons and shouting challenges as they dived past his towering form.
The legions of Moonriders were as gnats
to the unholy Lord of the Raith Sidhe, yet their incessant stings inflamed him and he roared in fury, bringing his fist smashing down against the trunk of the Hallowed Oak.
With a thunderous creaking of timber, the tree toppled and went crashing through the air.
The squirrels and Hobbers who had remained, staring up at the apparition in abject terror, hurried from the hilltop as the roots of the oak tore from the ground and the gigantic tree tumbled down the hillside—claiming many lives in its calamitous destruction.
Holding grimly onto Vesper, Ysabelle saw the magnificent oak smash down the slopes, throwing up tons of earth in its wake. Beneath them the foul demon bellowed, its fiery breath streaking through the darkness and withering the Knights of the Moon who plagued him into ashes.
The world shook as Hobb pounded his hooves and the forked tail thrashed about him.
Ysabelle gazed below and spoke quickly into Vesper’s ear.
“Take me down,” she said grimly, “to the very feet of that abomination.”
The bat stared at her, yet he knew the maiden too well to argue and with a sweep of his wings they descended.
Past the twisting horns they flew, past the fearful countenance and the necklace of skulls. Catching the wind in his wings, Vesper narrowly dodged the tail as it whipped towards them, and they landed on the ground without injury.
As soon as her feet touched the earth, Ysabelle raced over to the cloven hooves, not daring to look up at the towering nightmare and snatched the discarded amulet to her bosom.
“Hurry!” she cried, wrapping her arms about Vesper’s neck. “To the fallen oak!”
Beating his wings, the bat rose from the ground and sailed through the tortured night, out over the hillside to where the mighty tree lay broken in its ruin.
The massive trunk was shattered and the decorated chambers which the craftworkers of Greenreach had toiled over were exposed and demolished. A section of carved stairway poked from a gaping, jagged hole in the wreckage, and over the oak’s fragmented corpse, small fires blazed where the silver lanterns had spilled their oil and flame.
Over this devastation, Vesper flew and Ysabelle scanned the dismal sight keenly.