The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  ‘What I was going to—’ Pidge began again, but Cooroo broke in as before.

  ‘They begrudge me my own life—they want my death and they seem to get pleasure out of it and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Why do you take chickens at all?’ Pidge managed to ask.

  ‘I like the taste.’

  ‘So do I,’ Brigit said, defending him, adding reprovingly: ‘And so do you, Pidge.’

  ‘Once in a while there’s carelessness with door fastenings, and a lucky way left open that’s too great a temptation for me, a thief. But there are times when it’s hunger-forced work, and if I don’t find something to feed the hunger, the hunger will feed on me—and that’s another way to die that I’m not fond of.’

  Pidge considered in his mind the things that the fox had just said. Hunger-forced work sounds really awful, he reflected in the end, and said nothing.

  ‘In bad times,’ Cooroo continued, ‘I could believe that all I am is hunger with a nose; but that’s only when I’m starving.’

  ‘What do you think other times?’ Brigit asked.

  ‘After I’ve eaten I feel like a cub,’ he told her, and he leaped up into the air and then chased his own tail in a small circle on the pathway to show her what he meant.

  ‘But truly, hunger is the sharpest knife. Ah, my poor vixen,’ he said, almost to himself, as they walked on.

  For a long time there was only the rustle of the wheat in response to the stirrings of the air; and the conversations of insects and birds.

  ‘She was so clever and such a way she had with woodcock,’ Cooroo said in a kind of loud whisper that seemed to come from his heart.

  Pidge gave him a quick look, wondering if the fox were laughing at him again, but he saw that Cooroo wasn’t thinking of him at all.

  ‘Will I never forget that time of hunger and cold—a time when starvation can beat intelligence—and she ventured out against all reasoning. They were on to her in a flash. I did everything to draw them away from her, barring jumping into their teeth. I flaunted, I barked, I ran across her scent—oh, so many times. But they were like machines. The hunters followed her without mercy all of that day and where she got her strength, I’ll never know. She was so beaten in the end that she lost her footing on a small overhanging ledge and fell into a lake. Whatever chance her tired legs had running on land against the softness of air, there was no chance at all in the struggle against the deep water. She swam, very feebly, as far as she could—but she was done-in, and drowned from pure exhaustion. Ah, it is a sad and puzzling fate to share the world with man, but what can we do? My poor vixen—she could charm anything but the hounds, will I never forget it.’

  The children were deeply saddened by Cooroo’s words and Brigit was on the verge of tears. Her eyes shone and her lip quivered. Pidge thought it all very terrible; and to distract Brigit he thought that he would bring the conversation back to chickens.

  ‘Just tell me,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take just one old hen. Why do you lay about you and kill so many?’ he asked, rather unwillingly; realizing that it sounded as if he were picking on poor Cooroo.

  ‘Aw Pidge, leave him alone,’ Brigit said, her face looking woebegone and her voice sounding fretful.

  Cooroo looked at her with concern.

  ‘I would take one old hen if they’d let me,’ he said to Pidge though still watching Brigit’s face. ‘But you know yourself how cracked they are. No sooner do I put my nose in and say: “Good evening, Ladies! Anybody in here got foul-pest?” or any other joke like that—when they’re squawking and screeching in a way that’d waken the dead, let alone the man with the gun. You know yourself what they’re like. They have only to lay an egg and the whole world must know about it. You know how batty they are, don’t you, Brigit?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, beginning to smile.

  ‘Of course you do. Well, then I panic and try to shut them up; but it’s always too late, do you see?’

  ‘I see,’ Pidge agreed, partly for Brigit’s sake—for you could hardly expect the chickens to do anything else but make a fuss, he thought.

  ‘Now that we have all that behind us, perhaps we can be friends?’ Cooroo asked hopefully.

  ‘I’m your friend already,’ Brigit said very earnestly and throwing her arms around his neck, she hugged him.

  ‘I know you are, Brigit.’

  ‘And so am I,’ Pidge said, and he was. And in his heart he wondered how it so happened that a few hens had become so valuable that they could cost the life of a beautiful fox.

  Cooroo laughed in short happy barks and went on ahead through the golden radiance of the wheat.

  Suddenly, from behind them, came the baying of hounds.

  The hairs sprang up on Brigit’s arms and her eyes widened. Pidge felt the back of his neck stir in a horrifying way. It was so unexpected. Until this, they were quite certain that the hounds were far, far behind, because of the difficult barrier that the Elk had so easily crossed.

  Cooroo was not startled at all as a part of him always listened for this sound; but his neck-hair had a roughened look and his nostrils twitched.

  The breeze made a rustling sound in the growth around them and, because everyone was so tensed to listen, it seemed to be much louder than before.

  After a silence during which they stood rigidly listening, the howling came again.

  Now Cooroo was extraordinarily alive. His eyes were full of sharp intelligence and his body was ready to spring or run or do anything at all that he wanted. Instead of doing any of these things, however, he lifted his head and tested the wind with his nose.

  ‘It’s in our favour. We’re all right for the moment,’ he said.

  ‘What I’d like to know is—how did they get across that rotten old abyss?’ Brigit scowled, her voice full of rage.

  When the hounds had recovered from the shock of seeing a huge animal appear out of the ground to fly over the abyss like a bird, they had talked among themselves uneasily.

  ‘The strange one with branches fixed to his head like a deer—runs!’ Silkenskin had observed worriedly. ‘Do the two-legged cubs run also since they are on his back?’

  ‘There are no bonds on us not to hunt said Lithelegs to general agreement. ‘May we also hunt him!’ them?’

  ‘The cubs themselves do not run—they sit. I, Greymuzzle, have seen it.’

  ‘Then we must continue to follow only and not hunt in earnest? It is Wolfson that asks.’

  ‘Surely, legs run under them, they speed and the cubs are carried forward. Therefore, do they not run?’ Swift inquired.

  ‘Fierce speaks. If we may say that they now run, the condition is broken and the bond is dissolved, since this has happened within our sight.’

  ‘The question is—do they run?’ said Findepath.

  ‘The flea on my back runs if they run! The flea on my back has a wondrous speed with my legs under him!’ Fowler said scornfully.

  This was such a ridiculous idea that it caused a burst of unchallenged laughter, and they all agreed that they would continue to trail and not hunt, once they had crossed over the abyss.

  They waited for The Mórrígan’s help.

  In the glasshouse it had been discovered that one of the rats had been cheating unfairly by eating some of his spare cards. He was just thinking privately that there wasn’t much nourishment in Kings and Queens but that Diamonds seemed to be slightly better, when one of the rats that sat beside him raised an objection by giving him a smart box in the ear. Bullying broke out then, and soon there was a fist-foot-and-mouth fight in which tails were bitten and noses scraubed, and all the harmony of the poker-game was shattered.

  The Mórrígan had long since laid the looking-glass aside, placing it face upwards on Breda’s workbench. She had returned her attention to the table landscape, had smiled in amusement to see the children’s dismay at the burning bridge and had frowned delicately when they had gone into the tree. Now she turned to watch the rat-fight and she laughed.

 
; Melodie said that she thought them all quite charming.

  ‘How pleasant and refreshing it is to see them being so natural, the vicious little rascals,’ she said indulgently.

  They enjoyed the fight until it got half-hearted and then Breda separated the few who were still at it and plonked all of the rats firmly back in their places. She declared that the cheating rat had been out of order, on the grounds that the cheat hadn’t worked—but that it would have been all right if he hadn’t been rumbled.

  Melodie had conjured some tiny cigars and she was on the point of giving the first rat a light, when the fun was interrupted by a barely audible cry from the hounds on the table landscape.

  They had waited for help that had not come. When there was no response, they had called on the three women to notice thier plight, by throwing back their heads and howling loudly.

  The women went to the table, saw the Elk speeding like an arrow away into the distance and the hounds waiting patiently at the edge of the abyss.

  ‘They should have jumped that or died trying,’ Melodie said, her voice snappish.

  With an impatient movement, The Mórrígan closed the abyss by reaching forward and pinching together the edges of a large crack that ran along the table’s surface.

  The bracelet, as ever, swung against her wrist.

  The hounds got going at once, pushed and prodded into a good start by the women’s wands. The Elk, of course, had vanished in the dark distance, but the hounds followed on with fidelity, although they were very far behind indeed. Findepath, Lithelegs, Rushbrook and Swift did well in the matter of scenting, for the Elk’s spoor was wide.

  During all of the time that Pidge and Brigit had spent in the cart house and the wild garden, the hounds ran. They ran while the children lingered with Needlenose. And still they ran when Pidge and Brigit resumed their journey, half-dawdling or walking at their own natural speed.

  This was the way they had crossed the abyss and why they were, by now, not very far behind.

  Chapter 29

  WITH Pidge now leading the way and Cooroo acting as rearguard they hastened through the wheatfield, Cooroo having first cautioned them to try not to disturb the high-growing stalks by brushing against them with their bodies as they passed.

  ‘Don’t make it too easy for them,’ he had counselled.

  When they reached the end of the path he stopped and asked the children to wait. He lifted his head and with his ears cocked, he listened. At the same time his nose searched in every possible direction.

  ‘We’re safe enough for now,’ he said at last; and only then did they emerge from the cover of the wheat.

  ‘Now,’ he said, as they went along the headland towards an open gate, ‘try to keep in cover as much as you can, even if it’s only the shady side of a stone wall. And again, whatever you do, don’t disturb anything as you walk, but step throughtfully. If the hounds should happen to be looking your way and you are causing bushes and saplings to move, you might as well be waving a flag at them, do you see? Don’t touch anything at all with your bodies to keep the scent slight—then it will only be on the ground. If these hounds are clever, they will allow one nose to do the work; and all of the rest will be content to keep pace with that one until he tires. Then one other will take his place. If they’re stupid, they will all be trying to catch a sniff and they’ll get in each others’ way. If you spread your scent out by allowing things to touch you, you’ll be helping them to move faster. To make it as hard as possible, it would be well if we all travelled in a single line.’ The fox’s knowledge inspired great confidence in Pidge.

  They left the wheatfield through the open gate.

  ‘We do things step by step,’ Cooroo now said. ‘Look out for a ditch, or somewhere that is damp, as a way of going. Never fail to go through thorn bushes and clumps with prickles, and be pleased if you find any. That’s the way to give the hounds a few sore noses and make their work uninviting.’

  ‘We haven’t got the same kind of skin as you. If we go in thorn bushes we’ll get scratched ourselves,’ Pidge pointed out.

  ‘Oh, that won’t do at all,’ said the fox. ‘Forget about that bit, so.’

  Now they were standing in the broad far-ranging country without walls or fields. A long way off, and growing at a lower level, was a forest stretching as far as the eye could see; and beyond the forest the mountains stood.

  Not far from the wheatfield gate there was an evil-smelling dungheap. Cooroo’s eyes danced with mischief when he saw it.

  ‘Roll in that! You first, Brigit,’ he said.

  ‘No fear!’ she answered with a powerful disgust.

  Pidge burst our laughing.

  ‘But you should,’ Cooroo insisted, ‘and be very glad we found it.’

  ‘No, I won’t!’ she said shaking her head.

  ‘But it would be good fun. It would set the hounds a problem; they wouldn’t be sure if they were following us, or wayfaring cows, and the smell would fill their noses. Go on, Brigit!’

  ‘I’m not rolling in it and that’s flat.’

  ‘How can you be so foolish? At least get plenty on your shoes—do that much!’

  Pidge was laughing so much, he had tears in his eyes.

  ‘Stop laughing, Pidge,’ Cooroo pleaded. ‘Set her an example and you roll in first.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Pidge blurted out, shaking with giggles.

  ‘How can you say there’s no need? How can you stand there laughing when we could be running for our very lives at any minute?’

  ‘That’s just the whole thing,’ Pidge explained, while spasms of laughter still bubbled up from somewhere in him. ‘We dare not run and we have no need for tricks. We can’t run if they’re actually in view, and they can’t run to catch us unless we do. They’re not hunting us at all, they’re only trailing us. There are bonds on them or something. And during this journey we’ve found out that they obey the bonds.’

  ‘What are you telling me!’ Cooroo exclaimed. He was utterly astounded.

  ‘We can run now, this minute—if we like, because we can’t see them, yet. But I don’t think we should, as this country is so open and unsheltered. They could be looking at us before we realized it and got the chance to stop.’

  ‘This is a new thought for me,’ Cooroo said slowly.

  ‘You don’t have to worry at all,’ Pidge said, his fit of laughing over.

  ‘But surely, when they see me they will hunt me, as I am not protected by the bonds?’

  ‘Oh, but you are! Don’t you see? While you’re with us they can’t come at you without running at us. You’re safe, Cooroo.’

  ‘This is a moment I’ll never forget. This is the best news I have ever heard!’ Cooroo said, and he threw his head back and barked with laughter.

  ‘It’s wonderful to think that they could hear me and it wouldn’t matter,’ he said, and he did it again.

  ‘Are they near us yet?’ Brigit said fiercely.

  Cooroo tested the wind again.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re still a long way off—but coming.’

  ‘It’ll be hard luck on them when they meet me!’ she said recklessly, and she made two small fists and waved them about wildly.

  Then she stroked Cooroo.

  Chapter 30

  ‘SEE our small enemies? The Dagda keeps step with them all of the way, it seems,’ said the Mórrígan, her voice rough with exasperation.

  Melodie and Breda moved to her side.

  ‘What has he sent now?’ Breda asked, scowling.

  ‘A fox. A sly one,’

  Melodie shrugged her shoulders and said:

  ‘His skills are worthless in this matter; he will be of little use to the brats. And if they should happen to run, the hounds will be happy to tear him apart.’

  No sooner had she finished speaking than The Mórrígan gave a horrified scream. Her eyes sparkled darkly, her knee-caps slipped rapidly up and down her legs, and her toes stood at right angles. She sizzled with temper a
nd was spitting like a sausage in a pan.

  ‘What ails you?’ the others asked, as they saw nothing on the table to warrant this kind of anger.

  ‘Something of The Dagda’s on my bracelet! Something good on my wrist!’ she replied in a horrible husky voice that was heavy with offended loathing.

  She pointed to a red rash that had surfaced in patches on her skin and then, in the blink of an eye, she snatched at her bracelet and ripped off the little golden Castle Durance. She grasped it between thumb and forefinger and gave it a good shake.

  A thing, too small to be seen by the human eye fell out. It landed invisibly on the table and, in time, grew to visibility. It got bigger and was a pale, tiny thing like the smallest seed that could ever be. It grew further still and was unmistakably the scrying-glass.

  Quivering with hatred, The Mórrígan used her fingernails delicately and picked it up.

  At once, the air was colder.

  A small hiss escaped through The Mórrígan’s clenched teeth.

  The scrying-glass grew even bigger and when she gave it an experimental shake the artificial snow flew.

  When the travellers were about half-way across the wide expanse of country between the wheatfield and the forest, the weather changed. One moment the world was at its ease under the sun and the next moment the air chilled and the wind began in a sly way. Brigit was soon complaining that she was perished.

  It was a cold wind, a frost-blowing wind, and under its influence the grass swayed and silvered.

  The sky had changed. There was a watery-looking sun that looked like a thin shaving of raw of turnip and was pale orange with blue blotches. The sky looked pallid and empty.

  It was colder by the second. The sharp wind buffeted them about the head until their ears were singing. It ruffled their hair and chilled the skin on the backs of their necks and bit cruelly at their faces as if it were a frost-wolf with teeth of ice. At their feet the ground frosted and Brigit found a frozen toadstool softly coloured pink and buff; and although it was solid and heavy and rock-hard, she thought it perfect in its strangeness.