Emmett felt the urgency of rising bile in his throat, and a thousand aching voices exploded in his mind. Shuddering against the convulsion, Emmett’s arm shot out to steady himself against Keiran, who, seeing him, reacted immediately with a deep note.
“We need to head east and try to outrun them,” Keiran pointed.
The robed Revenant was joined by two more stepping from the train, both covered in a smattering of blood soaking through their black robes. One dragged a screaming Ellie by her hair along the ground.
“Help me!” Ellie screamed.
Emmett tore away before Keiran’s hand could stop him. He saw Amala and the other Druids fighting at Silvan Dea, and Paulo’s body arc rigidly as the Underdweller plunged its claws into and through his chest. He saw Troy’s headless corpse floating in the river. Keiran would have them flee again, leaving others to die for him. But Emmett was too angry to run.
Adrenaline propelled Emmett’s narrow frame the hundred or so yards between them, his heart pounding in his chest as he ran with the pipe held high above his head.
“Emmett, no! Stop!” Keiran called out behind him.
The female released Ellie and snarled. The other two raised their machetes and ran at Emmett. Bounding over twisted wreckage and burning grass, Emmett charged one of the men, swinging his pipe awkwardly. He dodged Emmett’s clumsy attack, and it was only Emmett’s tripping awkwardly to the ground that saved him from a vicious sideways swing of their machetes.
He rolled onto his back, preparing to block their inevitable killing blow. A clarion, deep sound called in the distance, and Emmett felt a wave of heat rush over him. Two of his attackers were slammed back by an unseen force.
Sebastian hurtled toward him, his wide frame visible in the dancing flames of the train’s wreckage. He brought one foot against the nearest attacker, kicking with such strength that Emmett heard bones crack. The other man redoubled his machete swing, recovering from the blast with an upward attack that forced Sebastian to leap back.
The woman was hissing sibilant, scathing words into the air. Emmett raised his pipe and lunged at her. Her incantation interrupted, the woman raised a long, sigil-covered knife and jabbed at Emmett. She moved faster than him, sidestepping his ill-timed swings and slicing him along the length of his arm, causing him to yell as he dropped the pipe.
Sebastian jumped back as the man slashed the air with his bloody machete, their eyes focused on each other. Hearing Emmett’s cry, Sebastian feigned a forward attack and spun away from him, stepping into the space between Emmett and the woman in time to block her knife with his own body.
In a single moment that felt to Emmett as if it could last forever, the woman reached a hand up to stroke Sebastian’s trembling features before spitting into his eyes. Obscene laughter erupted as she dropped him to the ground with her wicked knife still protruding from his chest. Emmett’s throat seized with an agonizing scream as he watched Sebastian fall into a heap on the ground. His lips twitched as blood trickled from the sides of his mouth.
The woman was suddenly clipped by a concussive force that blew over Emmett’s head and sent her tumbling through the air. She landed in the burning wreckage, skewered by jagged metal. A second force hit the remaining man in his head, snapping his neck sideways and sending his seizing body to the ground.
Keiran ran to Emmett and pulled him up. Feeling the blood pouring down his arm, Keiran closed his eyes and hummed a low note, running his hand along Emmett’s arm. His touch became a searing heat, and Emmett gasped as the wound closed.
Ellie’s crying drew their attention, the young woman pulling herself toward Sebastian. Keiran’s firm grip held Emmett steady, and Emmett saw a flash of warning as Keiran stared past him.
Ellie’s crying grew softer as her lithe form hunched over Sebastian. Keiran stepped in front of Emmett and inched closer to Ellie with his open palm held before him.
She suddenly lunged up and swung with a fierce slash, her hand drawing the knife out of Sebastian’s body with a spray of blood. She snarled, jabbing at Keiran. He began to form a melody, but she kicked dirt and pitch at him, his concentration broken as he shielded his head with his hands.
She slashed the knife and caught the edge of Keiran’s shoulder. Hissing through clenched teeth, Keiran brought his other leg around in a wide kick that met her other arm, pushing her back several paces.
Screams rang out near the front of the train. Gurgling sounds assaulted the night, followed by people begging for mercy from some unknown attacker.
A wide grin snaked across Ellie’s face. “Silvan Dea falls tonight,” she said knowingly. More frantic screams erupted, and Emmett strained in the darkness to see figures chasing other figures. Grotesque cheers called into the night as Revenant worshippers fell onto their victims, bludgeoning, slashing, or hacking at fallen passengers in a mass of flailing limbs and helpless, unanswered pleas.
“Flesh given for power!” she cried, bringing her knife down directly toward Keiran’s heart. “For Bezal—”
Emmett swung his recovered pipe directly at her face, connecting with bone before she could drive her knife into Keiran’s chest. She obviously had never considered Emmett as he struggled to position himself, never saw him as any threat to her. His vicious blow wrenched her petite frame backward with all the righteous anger he did not know he could possess.
Her head unnaturally snapped to the side, Ellie crumpled motionless in the grass. Her glossy, unfocused eyes stared blankly with her mouth slightly open. With the knife lying at her side, her body resembled a rag doll tossed unused into the corner of a child’s room, her legs folded awkwardly underneath her.
Emmett dropped the pipe, collapsing onto his knees with the shudder of the blow. His arms vibrated as the feeling of broken bone traveled up the length of his arms and throughout his body. The rage burning in him was suddenly extinguished, and the cold night assaulted his lungs as he struggled to heave air into a nauseated stomach. Fighting lightheadedness that blurred his vision, he focused on Keiran’s face.
“Emmett?” Keiran asked tentatively, reaching one hand out toward him.
Continued screams demanded the focusing of his consciousness, and Emmett willed himself to concentrate. He nodded at Keiran, standing upright as Keiran did so.
“I’m … I’m okay,” he stumbled. He knew he wasn’t. He had never hit another person. Never hurt someone. Never death.
I may never be okay again.
But there was no time for it.
Keiran watched him for a moment and seemed to recognize the shift in him before examining his own shoulder. Satisfied that the cut was not too deep, he scanned the area for others converging on them. Dark, cloaked figures ran about the area chasing passengers, but none seemed to be moving toward them.
“I can’t fight all of them. We can use the cover of darkness to run.”
“You knew, didn’t you?” Emmett stared down at Ellie’s limp form.
“I didn’t know for certain,” Keiran said as he knelt down and held a pair of fingers to Sebastian’s neck. “His pulse is nearly gone.” Keiran lowered his head over Sebastian and whispered something into his ear. Standing quickly just as another great howl sounded again in the distance, he grabbed Emmett’s arm with an urgency that communicated more than any words could hope to.
“Do exactly as I say; in a moment, things are going to get much, much worse.”
How worse could things get?
“What about Sebastian? We can’t leave him!”
“He’d only slow us down,” Keiran said unemotionally.
They hurried past the rear car and out into the empty fields beyond. They had run several hundred yards as another howl sounded. It was so close that Emmett felt the edges of his skin clamber, and he recoiled from something hot breathing against his neck.
Keiran abruptly stopped, holding Emmett fast to him in the darkness.
“Show yourself,” Keiran commanded firmly to the unresponsive night.
When nothing h
appened, Keiran tensed his shoulders and pushed his chest out. When he spoke again, it was with a voice filled with both courage and terror.
“I name you, Baraqiel. Reveal yourself.”
From coalescing shadows directly before them, the outline of a stooped figure suddenly appeared. Keiran whispered something soft and a halo of fireflies rose from the surrounding grasses, their dancing lights casting the figure in an ambient glow.
An old, haggard woman covered in a tattered robe leaned with great effort against a gnarled wooden staff nearly twice her height. She took a labored step toward them, and as she did so, the prairie grasses wilted in a wide swath before her.
Keiran held his open palm outstretched as his other arm pushed Emmett behind him. “I have named you. Do not approach us.”
The heavy folds underneath her swollen, pupil-less eyes contorted as a wicked, toothless smile spread across her pockmarked face. A dry wheeze followed a rasping chuckle that passed with effort over her cracked lips.
“The sad, sad boy who cried atop the snowy mountain,” she rasped in a high, keening voice. “He knows the name the Elders fear to share with the Children.”
Keiran released a tempered note from his lips, which the old woman laughed at, waving a crooked hand at him. “Children fumbling in the dark, make-believe and feeble art,” she dismissed in a singsong tone.
“Who is that?” Emmett whispered.
“Not a who but a what. An Old One known as the Hag. She minds the Black Hounds,” Keiran said, motioning toward Emmett’s left. Emmett’s eyes followed, and he recoiled. A pack of large black mastiffs the size of horses appeared seemingly out of the darkness, their fierce, glowing red eyes staring at him. Their deep panting exhaled a thick, rolling mist in the night’s cold air.
“Mother’s beauties,” she rasped, her haggard stare lovingly draped over the waiting hounds. “They are hungry for a hunt.”
“We are warded,” Keiran said confidently, holding his exposed forearm up. “I command you to leave.”
The Hag raised a crooked finger and wagged it at Keiran with mock consternation. “Perhaps you, weeping Bard. But this one,” she said, indicating Emmett with her finger, “this one has not yet been Born to the Song. Even now, Death pursues him. My babies smell it. Salty pores drawn down-down-down to the lowest moors.”
The hounds took a collective step forward, the grass before them wilting beneath their massive paws. Keiran maneuvered himself between them and Emmett just as the Hag looked at Emmett. “You are familiar to me, little orphan.”
“Do not look at her,” Keiran snapped. “Close your eyes, Emmett! Now!”
Emmett shut his eyes as he cowered behind Keiran.
“He is under the protection of the Archivist!”
The Hag released a throaty laugh that chilled Emmett’s soul. “You presume to speak for her, false witness? You who lied to your Elders through tears for your lost love? Weep and wail, cry to the storm’s northern gale.”
“The Archivist has called him to her!” Keiran defiantly proclaimed with pride that bolstered Emmett’s frightened spirit.
“Her Grove has fallen. All the way down the mountain, tumble-tumble and rumble all the way,” she cackled.
Emmett wanted to believe that Keiran could command the Hag away, that his authority was greater than whatever power she commanded. So hopeful was he that he opened his eyes and looked to Keiran.
“Born under the Light of Arthur, yes? An only child? Did you know what your mommy endured for you? What awaited her in the corner’s shadows long after the meddler stole you away?” the Hag intoned as her pupil-less eyes found Emmett’s.
“Damn it, Emmett! Close your eyes!”
Emmett nearly tore away in his own terror, closing his eyes tight and pulling his hands over them, as if to keep anything from entering them. There was silence but for his own breathing, Keiran’s labored breathing, and the heavy panting of the Black Hounds.
The Hag finally spoke. “The Old Ones do not suffer the little Children, weeping liar. Give me Emmett Jonathan Brennan, and I will leave. Let me spare you the suffering that awaits those who harbor him. You who have already seen so much of Death and found you had not the taste to endure it.”
She knows my name!
Emmett felt Keiran’s grip tighten as if he were steeling his resolve.
“Buildings may burn or crumble, but we survive. If no other Druids or Bards live, I still do! The Archivist’s Grove survives because Silvan Dea lives in me! Emmett belongs to us! I have named you, Baraqiel, and commanded you leave!” he shouted.
Emmett felt the palpable silence as the Hag apparently considered her response. Finally he heard something rustle in the grasses and, hearing Keiran release a long-held breath, chanced an open eye to see that the Black Hounds had bounded off for the train.
“Cower in fear all you wish, only child. But I know you now. The meddler may hide you, but I will see you again.”
The howling called again in the distance, and the echoing screams quickly died out, replaced by the baying of the Hounds. Where once there had been audible chaos, now only the crackling flames could be heard. The Hag pushed her staff forward, taking a step seemingly into shadow and vanishing into the cold night.
She knew me. She knows me.
Emmett could not bring himself to utter another word. The shocking, icy air blew through limbs that were engorged with adrenaline, and his body was trembling, too, with a fear of new, unimagined horrors that would be forever burned into his mind.
Keiran shook him by his arm as he forced his face directly into Emmett’s field of vision. “I need you to focus, mate. You trust me, yes?”
Emmett nodded dumbly, unblinking.
“Then run!”
They abandoned any semblance of cover and broke into a long, unending run out into the empty plains, hundreds of miles from help and lost in the wintry darkness.
CHAPTER 16
They ran for hours through waving prairie grasses before reaching a farm just before dawn. Keiran said nothing as they ran and Emmett dared not speak for fear he would have to slow down to do so. When Emmett could run no longer, Keiran hummed a melody that suffused his limbs with an uncomfortable urgency that helped him continue.
Collapsing underneath an oak tree behind the farm’s home, the effects of Keiran’s melody melted from Emmett’s limbs. They wobbled as if feeling had only just returned to them after years of disuse, and he quickly floundered as he tried to hold himself upright.
“Careful. Just keep rubbing them. Keep the blood moving down there.”
Keiran looked exhausted. His head seemed to sag under its own weight, and when he spoke, it was devoid of his usual cadence.
“Normally, my Bardic hearing would allow me to know if we had been followed on foot. But I am so drained that all I hear is a distant ringing. The Revenant worshippers need only follow our trail through the grass to find us.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“Hours. They’ll need to dispose of any evidence. Bold though their move against us was, I can’t believe they’ve surrendered their need for secrecy.”
“So what now?” Emmett coughed.
“We’ll change into these clothes,” Keiran said, motioning to a clothesline near them. “I’ve enough in me to persuade whoever lives here to drive us to the nearest town.”
As Keiran stood, Emmett readied to ask the hundreds of questions tumbling through his mind: Sebastian, Ellie, the passengers, the Hag and her Black Hounds …
Keiran seemed to sense this and held his hand up. “Not now, Emmett. Please, I need to get us away from here first,” he said, turning away and walking to the home.
As Keiran was knocking on the door, Emmett struggled to stand. He headed for the hanging clothesline just as a solitary light over the front door turned on above Keiran’s head.
Keiran returned as Emmett was changing, having procured for them a ride from the farmer and his wife to a larger town thirty miles away. Riding i
n the backseat of their pickup truck, Emmett collapsed from the strain of the journey. Keiran, too, surrendered to his own exhaustion, his eyes closed and head tilted forward with his neck against his chin. Emmett jumped each time he thought he heard an animal in the distance, hoping that Amala had finally come for them.
When they reached the larger town, Keiran used his remaining few hundred dollars to pay the farmer and purchase a pair of bus tickets. The previous hours had passed in silence, Emmett holding himself upright and trying to appear as calm and centered as Keiran had always been for his sake. If Keiran noticed this, he gave no indication, though he rarely looked at Emmett directly. Keiran never stopped looking around them, no longer bothering to hide his suspicions from Emmett. If a person stared too long in their direction or walked too close to them, Keiran would move them somewhere else with a constant glance over his own shoulder for any signs of pursuit.
Waiting for their departing bus, Keiran produced a whistle that caused the vending machine to short-circuit. He appeared with various snacks as he led Emmett to a secluded area of the bus depot, leaving the other passengers at a comfortable distance.
“Eat as much sugar as you can,” Keiran said as he pushed a pair of candy bars and a fruit juice can into his hands. “Your body will go into shock soon if you don’t eat enough. It’s not proper nutrition, but in extreme situations, survival is our first priority.”
When Emmett began eating, he found his greedy appetite could not be sated. He tore open the can and drank with loud gulps, ignoring an obnoxious belch that he pushed through so he could continue drinking the sweet, sugary carbonation.
“That’s not a song we often use given the resulting hunger and thirst … and belching,” Keiran offered with a half-grin, though over his candy bar Emmett did not see the usual Cheshire cat twinkle in his eyes.
Both ate ravenously. Keiran grinned sheepishly over his own burp.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Emmett said groggily. Having eaten his fourth candy bar, he could feel the resulting sluggishness as the sugar coursed through his blood and submersed his aching muscles.
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