The Unicorn Hunter

by Che Golden

  The witch gave a howl of rage and charged. Maddy stood her ground and then spun around at the last second, cracking the witch hard across the back of the head with the flat of her blade and sending her staggering head first into the wall. The witch growled and clambered to her feet.

  ‘Calling yourself a Hound doesn’t make it so,’ the witch said. ‘Weave a story for yourself if you like, girl – it doesn’t mean you can live it. And the ending of every story can change, even this one.’

  Maddy held the sword over her shoulder like a bat and prepared to swing again. ‘You’re going into that oven, whether you like it or not,’ she said.

  The witch and Maddy circled each other, each looking for an opening, while Roisin screamed their names outside and the steady thud, thud, thud at the door told her Fachtna had overcome her reservations and was trying to break in. The witch howled and charged Maddy again, but this time Maddy stepped into her arms and head butted her squarely on the nose. Her head rang but the witch went down a second time.

  Danny had managed to grab hold of the bench and pulled himself to his feet. Maddy turned to see if he was all right, when the hag climbed to her feet and lunged for the vicious-looking instruments Maddy had noticed when she first entered the room.

  ‘Stop her!’ yelled Maddy.

  It was not the most elegant intervention. Still woozy from his fall, Danny half fell against the witch, but he managed to pin her arms to her sides in a bear hug. The witch howled with rage and thrashed in his arms. Sweat poured from his face and the pair nearly fell over backwards as she arched her back and pushed off the ground with the pointed heels of her shoes.

  ‘Now what?’ he panted, as Maddy advanced on them, her face grim.

  ‘Now you’re going to help me shove her in the oven,’ said Maddy.

  ‘What?!’ asked Danny, horrified.

  The witch narrowed her eyes to slits and hissed at Maddy through her long teeth.

  ‘That’s the end of the story,’ said Maddy. ‘You heard her – no one gets out of here until it’s over.’

  Danny hesitated and the witch took the opportunity to snap her head back and catch him on the nose with her skull. Danny yelled in pain and let go of her, clamping his hand over his face, blood dripping from his nose.

  The witch made a run for it and was almost at the door when Maddy caught her. She rapped her hard on the head with the pommel of the sword to daze her, then drew the blade, tossing the scabbard aside. Fachtna came crashing through the door and the sugar glass exploded as Fenris and Nero leaped in through the windows. The wolves crept forward slowly, their hackles raised, every one of their long sharp teeth exposed in a deep-throated snarl.

  ‘Time’s up,’ Maddy whispered to the witch, who glared up at her. ‘If they can get in, the story’s over.’ She dragged the witch, who seemed to be a bundle of small bones underneath her dress, over to the oven and flipped the door open, singeing her fingertips.

  ‘Maddy, you can’t do this!’ said Danny. ‘You can’t burn someone alive!’

  ‘She’s not real,’ said Maddy.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Danny. ‘She looks real enough to me.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Fachtna. ‘It’s the only way we can get out of here.’

  ‘So you’re siding with the psycho faerie, are you?’ asked Danny, ignoring Fachtna. ‘This is who you want to be like now, is it?’

  ‘I’m doing what’s necessary,’ said Maddy.

  ‘That sounds familiar,’ said Fachtna.

  Those words were like a bucket of ice water over Maddy. All noise faded in her ears apart from the sounds of her breathing, her heart beating. She could not look at Danny, who was still pleading with her, or meet Fachtna’s mocking gaze. She did not want to look down at the struggling witch and see her afraid or pleading. Instead she looked into Fenris’s burning yellow eyes.

  A wolf puts its pack first, she thought as the wolf stared back at her and made no move or a sound to either condemn or support her. A Hound does the same. She turned away and the muscles bunched in her arm as she hauled the witch higher, preparing to throw her into the heart of the oven.

  ‘Why didn’t you come for me?’ said a child’s voice.

  Maddy looked down and saw her hands were now wrapped firmly around the slender throat of a girl aged around six. She gazed at her in shock. Her shoulder-length black-brown hair was tied up in two plaits finished with red ribbon. There was a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and her face was broad with a snub nose.

  ‘Why didn’t you come for me?’ asked the child again.

  ‘What?’ breathed Maddy.

  ‘What good is a Hound that leaves us to suffer?’ said the child. ‘What good is a hero that doesn’t come to the rescue? You came for him – why didn’t you save ME?!’ The child screamed, and Maddy was appalled as her skin began to blacken and shrivel like paper curling in a fire until all she held was a wizened little monstrosity with bulging pale eyes, that bared its fangs at her and clawed her arm until her jacket hung in tatters.

  Maddy yelped and tried to shake the thing off, but it shrieked louder and clung on for dear life while all around them the Hansel and Gretel cottage melted away and the mist swirled around them again. There were things in the mist now, things that joined in with tortured wails of their own and angry voices that shouted and jabbered. Fenris and Nero began to shake, their eyes rolling in their heads with fear, their hair standing up on end as they whipped their heads about, looking for an enemy. Danny and Roisin clung together with George held tightly between them, eyes shut, hands clamped over their ears, and all three of them trembled. The noise all around them grew to a deafening roar and Maddy thought her ears would bleed from the pain of the sound, but then Fachtna stepped forward, grabbed the wizened creature by the back of the neck and hurled it as far as she could.

  It disappeared into the mist with a last despairing screech. The roar of anger that had been all around them was silenced as effectively as if someone had flicked a switch. Maddy sank to her knees as her legs gave way, and over the sound of her ragged breathing she thought she heard the pattering of bare feet and the high sobs of a child.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Roisin, her voice shaking with fear.

  ‘A split soul,’ said Fachtna grimly

  ‘That’s what we are looking for?’ said Danny. ‘Why don’t we go after it?’

  ‘Because there could be thousands of split souls lurking in this mist and we have no way of telling which one attacked the unicorn mare,’ said Fachtna. ‘We need to catch it in the act, which means we need to find the mare, which means we need mac Cumhaill to hand over that cursed dog!’

  She drew a dagger and grabbed Maddy’s hand. ‘Enough of this messing,’ she hissed, and sliced the blade across Maddy’s palm. Maddy yelped with pain and watched, stunned, as Fachtna held her hand down and kneaded her wrist, making the blood pump faster.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Maddy.

  Fachtna grinned at her. ‘Quickest way to draw Finn mac Cumhaill out is to insult him. He never was the kind of man that could walk away from an insult.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just call him names?’ said Maddy, her stomach churning as she watched her own blood drip into the mist, disappearing from sight before it hit the ground.

  Fachtna winked at her. ‘I spill Fenian blood and call on the Fianna to answer!’ she cried, her voice falling dead and flat in the mist that still whispered of hurts and wrongs and vengeance. ‘I call on Finn mac Cumhaill to answer the call of his tribe and avenge his blood!’

  The mist flew apart as if someone had turned an industrial-strength hairdryer on it, and about two hundred metres away a castle not unlike Blarney soared into view, its gateway barred and its windows shuttered.

  ‘At last!’ said Fachtna.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘All of you, stay behind me,’ said Fachtna. ‘Fenris, Nero, guard them on each flank.’ The wolves silently padded over to stand either side of Danny, Roisin and
Maddy. ‘Keep that dog quiet and let me do the talking.’

  They walked forward in a defensive huddle until they stood immediately below the gates to the castle. There were men on the battlements, men with long flowing hair, dressed in plaid and breeches. Helms covered their brows and noses and beards hid the rest.

  ‘Ach,’ said one as he spat in their direction. ‘It’s a faerie.’

  ‘What do you want, faerie?’ called another. ‘Was it you that spilt the blood?’

  ‘It was,’ said Fachtna.

  ‘And why would you go and do a silly thing like that?’ said the man.

  ‘To get your attention.’

  ‘Aye? Have you come to fight, faerie?’

  ‘No, I’ve come to parley with mac Cumhaill,’ said Fachtna. ‘And to ask for a loan of that dog of his, Bran.’

  The men on the wall looked at each other in amazement and then started to laugh.

  ‘Then it is a fight you’ve come for, faerie, for it will be a cold day in hell before Finn mac Cumhaill gives up Bran.’ He laughed. ‘You have to give me a better reason than a half-daft one to open the gates. Every faerie should know that Finn mac Cumhaill does not parley with your kind. I thought faerie babes took that knowledge in with their mother’s milk.’

  ‘Will he parley with the Hound of his people?’

  The men on the gate began to mutter while the laughing warrior simply smiled down at them. ‘So it’s true then? A faerie travelling with the Hound? Strange company to keep.’

  ‘These are strange days,’ said Fachtna. ‘And there are ripples in the mortal world and Tír na nÓg alike that will disturb even mac Cumhaill in his fortress. It would be in his best interests to listen to what I have to say.’

  The warrior grinned down at her. ‘Mac Cumhaill is a man who knows where his own best interests lie and I doubt a faerie is going to tell him any different. But seeing as you come in peace, you are welcome to try to tell mac Cumhaill what’s good for him. It has been a while since we had a bit of entertainment around here.’

  The men laughed, the gates swung open and they walked into the fortress of the Fianna.

  Maddy looked around and shivered. There was no sound to the place, no echo. Their footsteps thudded down on the packed earth with a dull noise that faded from the memory instantly. She listened to every footfall and decided she couldn’t describe what the sound was like, even if her life depended on it. There was no sky, no scenery, just that infernal yellow mist pressed against the outside walls and hanging above their heads. There were more men in the courtyard, helmeted and wearing chain mail like those on the battlements. They stood around in listless groups and watched them go with dull, resentful eyes. Maddy shuddered at their gaze. They were men marooned – the world had gone on without them.

  ‘Are they men or stories or ghosts or what?’ she whispered to Roisin.

  ‘Probably a little bit of everything,’ she whispered back.

  Fachtna stopped abruptly and turned around. ‘I want no whispering or chattering in here,’ she said, red eyes narrowed. ‘Say nothing that can give mac Cumhaill or the Fianna any reason to take offence. Understand?’

  All three of them nodded at her. She looked at Fenris and Nero. ‘And no talking at all from the two of you. The Fianna are a little old-fashioned, so no taking offence at anything they say and drawing attention to yourselves. They might decide that what the place needs is the head of a talking wolf, stuffed and mounted.’ She prepared to walk on.

  ‘No eating, no talking – this is no fun at all,’ said Nero, his tongue lolling from his teeth as he grinned. Maddy, Danny and Roisin choked back giggles as Fenris swept them with his fiery gaze before turning and padding after Fachtna, who strode ahead to a hall set inside the battlements. The huge wooden doors stood open and she walked through, Maddy practically having to jog to keep up with her supernaturally long strides.

  Inside, the hall was dark and oppressive. There were more men lingering in here, in the same silence, the same sullen look in their eyes, the only things about them that moved as they sat at long benches that spanned the length of the hall watching them pass. The floor was strewn with rushes that gave off no scent or sound as they walked on them. Shields and banners decorated the stone walls, and at the end of the hall, set on a dais beneath huge arched windows, was a tall wooden throne covered with animal furs. A huge man sat there, his dark curling hair tumbling about his shoulders and a massive sword lying across his knees. There were a few hunting dogs slinking about by the benches, but there was no mistaking the beast that sat at his feet. The wolfhound had piercing blue eyes and she gazed at Maddy with the haunted expression she remembered from the vision the Coranied had shown her. This had to be Bran. About the throne sat a number of women, all with tears streaming down their faces. Their cheeks were marked with grooves where the water had worn a path, the front of their dresses and their laps were dark and marbled from the salt tide while the rushes at their feet gave off a faint whiff of damp.

  ‘Greetings from the Winter Court, Finn mac Cumhaill,’ said Fachtna as she bowed her head to the man on the throne. ‘We have travelled a long way and would like to break bread and salt with the Fianna.’

  The man raised his head to look at them. He looked exhausted and grief-stricken, with deep lines carved into his face. But there was keenness in his eyes his men did not have. He smiled without any real warmth. ‘What good does it to you to take bread and salt from the living dead, faerie?’ he asked in a voice so low that Maddy had to strain to hear it. ‘No one here eats or drinks any more. And I wouldn’t offer guest rights to one of your kind even if I had the food.’

  Maddy could see Fachtna’s whole body stiffen with anger at the insult but she kept her voice soft and polite. ‘Then may we have a private audience?’

  Finn mac Cumhaill waved a hand and gave a grunt that Maddy was sure was supposed to be a laugh. It sounded like it found it too much effort to make its way up the man’s throat. ‘There is no private here,’ he said. ‘The mist tells me why you have come.’

  ‘What does it say?’ asked Fachtna.

  ‘That you come here to ask for the use of Bran for a little while, to hunt down a unicorn that has fallen far from the eyes of the Tuatha.’ At the sound of her name, Bran looked up adoringly at her master and thumped her tail a couple of times on the flagstone floor. ‘The mist should have told you that you are wasting your time. Bran is dearer to me than any child, and I would never let her leave my side, not even if it was my own father who asked for her.’

  ‘Our need is urgent …’ began Fachtna.

  ‘Not to me,’ said Finn. ‘What do I care if the outside world is dying? Let it die.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ asked Maddy, peering around Fachtna’s body. The dark faerie looked down at her and bared her teeth in an effort to get Maddy to shut up, but she took no notice. ‘All the people above the mound, they still tell your stories; you are still a hero. They keep you alive. Isn’t that how this place works?’

  Finn gave that weird grunting laugh again. ‘Does this look like life to you, child?’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like you’re having much fun, but—’

  ‘It has been many, many years since I walked in the sun above the mound,’ Finn interrupted. ‘The mortal world is a dream to me. What do I care what mortals say? I was flattered when the bards wrote songs about the Fianna and me. They told me my deeds would live on forever in the hearts of men. And so they do, while I live here in this half-life, a shadow of the man I once was, because I am caught tight in the story and it won’t let go. And this place, girl, is where human stories come to die. I wait for my story to end and my memory to fade in the minds of men.’ He looked at Fachtna with hatred. ‘But it is enough. I won’t pass into the cauldrons of the Coranied and become food for faeries. Now I wait and Bran waits with me.’ The wolfhound licked at his hand and he rested it on her head. ‘You cannot have her.’

  ‘You’re waiting for your wife, aren’t you?’ piped
up Roisin. ‘Wait, let me think … I remember the story.’ Finn frowned and Fachtna looked as if she would happily strangle Roisin. ‘You went hunting and Bran found a fawn that turned into a woman when you took her back to your castle. You married her, but one day when you were away fighting she was lured outside and turned into a fawn again, and you have been looking for her ever since. Is that right?’

  Finn’s face darkened. ‘My wife, a faerie woman herself. Cursed to live as a fawn by a Tuatha de Dannan, because she refused to love him,’ he growled. ‘But Bran knew her to be a woman in animal form and she will know her again. My wife is alive still, and Bran is the only dog that I can trust to bring her to me without a scratch on her. So we wait and we throw our thoughts out to her. The women of my court weep for her endlessly, shedding the tears that I cannot, and she will find her way back to us one day.’

  Danny spoke up. ‘There are millions of lives depending on us finding the unicorn mare and we need Bran to do it,’ he said. ‘Are you going to sacrifice all those lives for one woman?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Finn, stroking Bran’s head.

  ‘How can you sit and do nothing?’ asked Danny. ‘I’ve heard the stories about you. You were the King Arthur of the Irish! The Finn mac Cumhaill I read about would never have turned his back on millions of people and left them to die.’

  Finn mac Cumhaill fixed him with his dark gaze and Danny took an involuntary step backwards. ‘I was like you once, boy,’ he said. ‘I gloried in the fight and I stained the ground with the blood of my enemies. I basked in the love of my men and my wife and my child. I felt strong and alive and as if the world was mine.’ He looked now at Fachtna. ‘Then faeries took my wife and lured away my son to their lands and to his death and all was darkness. There was no more laughter, no more joy in the midst of battle, no taste in food and drink. I died in my heart long before my story brought me here and I live now only to set eyes on my love once more. The mortal world is but a faded memory; I have not shared its concerns for centuries. I wait for my love to return, and Bran and my court wait with me. That is all we live for now. I will not give her up for even a second.’