I lunge toward one right in front of me, but it pulls back at the last moment. The next one I try to strike does the same thing.
“They’re retreating!” someone shouts. It’s true: they’re pulling away from us all around the loch.
“Hold your ground!” shouts Kenrick.
The sgàilean have stopped about ten paces away from us. Their whispering grows more intense, as if they’re communicating with one another, plotting something.
“On my command, we charge at them,” says Kenrick, and the order is echoed along the line. “They are no match for our weapons,” he continues, “and they’re close enough that we can still return to the loch if necessary. Three, two, one, charge!”
Everyone runs forward, weapons raised. At the same time the sgàilean rush at us at an impossible speed. It happens so quickly. A few are taken out, but the majority slip past. By the time we turn around, they’ve formed a black barrier between us and the loch, cutting off our safety net.
“What do we do?” someone shouts.
“We need fire!” shouts somebody else.
“No, we have to stay together,” says a third voice.
Panic forces people in different directions, and within moments, everyone has dispersed. Individual sgàilean break away from the group and hunt down those that are fleeing. The screams of the fallen are even worse than those of the sgàilean. Without saying anything, Cray, Aileen, and I huddle together, our eyes alert. Not far from where we’re standing, two sgàilean sneak up on a woman from Clann-na-Bruthaich.
“Look out!” I shout, but she doesn’t hear me.
While one of the sgàilean distracts her, the other slips up her body, then down her arm and tears at her wrist. She drops her sword. Cray takes a few paces toward her, but the moment she is weaponless, more sgàilean descend on her, and there’s nothing we can do.
The discarded sword sways into the air; one of the sgàilean has picked it up. Something within the sword allows the sgàil to rise up off the ground until it is upright in front of us: a faceless mass of pulsing darkness. It’s getting a feel for the sword’s weight. It doesn’t take it long to figure out how to wield it. Cray takes half a step backward, raising his non-spear hand in the air as if trying to calm a wild animal. The sgàil swings the sword in a swift figure eight and then launches itself at us.
I don’t want to be with the children. I am not a child. Lenox says it is an important job to do helping the children but I want to do the more important job which is fighting the shadow things.
All of the children are here in the nursery. It is a long room and a big one. Some children are asleep and one of them is crying which is more annoying. He is from Clann-na-Bruthaich. If he was our clan he would know not to be scared. I am not scared. There is no point to be scared. A woman is trying to make the boy stop crying by stroking his hair. She is one of the people here to look after the children with me and her name is Una. She has a sword which glows because the Badhbh man made it magic. It is for killing the shadow things. It is covered up by her side so the shadow things don’t see it. She is the only one with a magic sword in here. Lenox says we don’t need magic swords. He says the shadow things won’t come in here and he is right. Una’s one is only for the emergencies.
I listen for the shadow things but I cannot hear them. All I can hear is the fires and some wind outside. There are four fires in the nursery. They will stop the shadow things from coming in no problems. The wind outside is very loud. We closed all the windows so it didn’t blow in. Now it is hot because of the fires and there is smoke which makes me cough.
It is dark outside. I know it because Una said it to another man and I heard. It means the shadow things will come soon.
There is a sound. Was it a shout? I think it was, yes. It was from outside. Everyone is quiet. The boy who was crying is not crying anymore. One girl says, “Is it the shadows?” and a man says to her, “Shhh.” We all listen more.
More noises come from outside then. Horrible noises. It is shouts and the shadow things and the worst screams ever.
The door opens with a bang. It is a surprise, a big one. The Badhbh man is there. Why did he come? All his clothes are blowing with the wind. “Close the door!” someone shouts. The Badhbh man tries to close it but the wind makes it hard. It is too late. The big wind is already come in. It blows on all the fires and one, two, three, four, all of the fires go out.
It is very dark and everyone is shouting lots of noise all around. Someone screams. The door shuts and the wind isn’t coming in anymore. All I can see is Una’s special sword doing the glowing. She has it out just a little bit so we can see. Someone bumps me and I say “Ouch” and I don’t know who it was. It is so much smoke and I am coughing. The boy is crying again or maybe it is a different one. We need to make the fires quick before the shadow things come.
“Who has the flint?” says a voice. “Quickly.” Someone is shouting at the Badhbh man and lots of other shouting.
“All the children to the far wall,” says Una. She says it loudest so everyone can hear. Everyone moves back and I do too. Only the Badhbh man doesn’t move. He stays by the door.
“I have f-flint,” I say. I am a Hawk so I always have some. I take it out from my belt pouch.
“Why didn’t you say?” shouts a man from Clann-na-Bruthaich who I don’t know and I can’t see him properly because of the smoke.
“I did s-say,” I tell him, which is true.
“Well light the bloody fire, then,” he says.
There is no reason to be mean. I go to the fire that is closest and go on my knees. Everyone is watching me and I have to be quick. My hands are shaking. I do not want everyone watching. I am not good at doing the flint. I hit it on the steel but I can’t do it hard enough. I keep trying. There is a bit spark but it is not a good one.
“Out of the way, let me do it,” says the man. He takes the flint from me and pushes me away. It is rude of him to do that so I do an angry face at him.
He tries to light the fire but it is hard for him to do it too. He stops when he hears the sound. It is a horrible sound that is like strangled. It is a shadow thing, I know it. It is outside and it found us. The Badhbh man is at the other end of the nursery by the door and he takes out his sword. It is a special one too which does glowing. He moves it in a circle around him and says something quiet. Then he cuts both his arms with the sword. He is bleeding. I think maybe he did it to kill himself because he is scared of the shadow things but he is not dead. He wipes his blood on the sword and it glows more red. He moves the sword in a circle again and then hits it in the ground where it stays wobbling. A big circle glows all around him. It is magic, I know it. He did the blood magic. I have never seen it before and I cannot even believe it.
“What are you doing?” Una shouts to the Badhbh man. “You should be helping all of us, not just yourself.”
The Badhbh man closes his eyes. He does not say anything. I was watching the Badhbh man and I forgot about the shadow thing. It is coming in now, under the door. It is like black water moving. The man with the flint sees it and does the flint even faster but the fire will not start. The shadow thing is inside. It goes to the Badhbh man and it tries to get him but it can’t because of the circle glow he made. The Badhbh man should kill it with his sword to help us but he doesn’t. All he does is watch. The shadow thing moves away from him. It is going to get us instead.
“Stay back,” says Una to all of us. She steps forward two steps and takes out her sword and holds it in front of her. The sword is very bright light glowing and the shadow thing goes straight for it. Una waits until the shadow thing is just about to get her and then she slams the sword down.
The shadow thing explodes. The scream is the worst sound I ever heard in my life. I put my hands over my ears to stop hearing it but I can still hear it. All the parts of the shadow thing disappear in the air and then it is gone. Una did it. She is brave, not like the Badhbh man.
The boy who was crying before s
tarts crying again. He does not like the sound of the shadow thing dying is what I think. Then he is running and he runs all the way to the door and opens it and goes outside. He shouldn’t do that. It is not safe to be outside.
“Stop him!” someone shouts.
I do it. I run after the boy. Being the hero is helping and brave and I am good at doing that. When I pass the Badhbh man, I grab onto his sword in the floor and pull it hard. It comes away and the circle around the Badhbh man goes. His eyes open big.
“No!” he says, and he tries to grab his sword back but I have it now and I am too quick out the door. If he will not use it to help people, then I will use it to help people.
Outside it is a lot of wind. There is fighting sounds and screams. The screams is the shadow things being killed which is good and also people being hurt which is very not good. I hope my Clann-a-Tuath are not hurt and my friends are not hurt too like Jaime and Aileen and Maistreas Eilionoir and Crayton. Please don’t let the shadow things get them.
The Badhbh man’s sword has light so I can see a little bit but I cannot see the boy who ran away. I look around for shadow things. I cannot hear them close but maybe they are hiding and will get me.
“Crying boy!” I shout because I do not know his name. “W-where are you? You have to come back — in!”
I hear him. He is crying but only a quiet bit. I go around the side of the nursery wall and he is on the ground behind a barrel. He is hugging his knees and his head is down.
“Come on, you boy,” I say, and I pull on his arm to make him stand up.
He does a louder cry and pulls his arm away and will not move. Hmmm. This is a tricky one and difficult.
I pat the boy on his head which is to be kind. He doesn’t look at me so I go down next to him.
“Are you scared of the sh-shadow things?” I say. He nods his head. I do not tell him that he is wrong to be scared because I am kind and being nice. “Look, I have a m-magic sword. It will stop the shadow things so you don’t need to be — scared.”
He lifts his head then and looks at the sword. His eyes are shiny color. “Can I hold it?” he asks to me.
I think about it and then I say yes. I give him the sword and he holds it in two hands. He is not crying now which is good. “It is good to be b-brave,” I say. “Shall we go back in now? It is — safer inside.”
The boy nods and we stand up. I let him hold the sword even though it is too big for him and he has to do dragging. We turn the corner and I reach to open the door but I pull back just in time. There is a shadow thing on the door. It nearly got me.
“Get back,” I say to the boy. “G-give me the sword!”
“I’ll get it,” says the boy. “I am brave now.”
He swings the sword but it is too heavy and he lets go. It does not hit the shadow thing. It lands on the ground. The shadow thing slides down off the door and is blocking so we cannot get the sword.
“Run!” I shout.
I grab the boy’s hand and we run. The shadow thing chases us. I am not good at running. The boy is faster. He is pulling my arm. It is hurting but I have to go fast fast fast.
We run all the way around the nursery in the circle and there is the door again and I have to open it quick. The shadow thing is nearly so close to us and it is hard for my fingers to do the door open. Come on come on. The door opens and we fall inside. It is light in the nursery from the fires. They are lit again so the shadow thing cannot follow us in. Someone shuts the door so the wind does not put the fires out like it did before. My breath is hard and lumpy breath.
“Where’s my sword?” says the Badhbh man. He is standing over me. He is very cross. “You had no right.”
“I l-lost it,” I say, but that is only a little bit true. I know where it is. It is outside, of course. Then I have the idea. Lenox said I couldn’t fight the shadow things because I did not have a weapon but if I get the Badhbh man’s sword again then I do have a weapon.
Being the hero is helping people, like I helped the boy who was crying and ran away. Now I am going to be the bigger hero and help the other people too.
I stand up. Someone is giving a cuddle to the crying boy. Everyone else is looking at me.
“I have to go now,” I say. “I’m going to be the hero.”
I open the door and go back out into the dark.
Cray parries the first few strikes of the sgàil’s sword, but none of us can get close enough to destroy it. More shadows drift toward us, forcing Aileen and me to switch our focus onto dealing with them. Aileen slays two and I take out a third, but more keep coming. I know what they’re after: our weapons. People are being disarmed all around us, and the sgàilean are rising from the ground. There’s only one thing worse than an army of sgàilean, and that’s an army of sgàilean with swords.
Cray, Aileen, and I fight with our backs pressed against each other, hoping to protect one another by staying together.
“Ah!” Cray cries as the sgàil’s sword nips his shoulder. He manages to land a blow with his spear and the sgàil bursts into smoke, but already another sgàil has picked up the sword and Cray is once again under attack. I’m distracted by a sgàil of my own. It takes me four attempts to hit it. When I look back, Cray is in a tugging war; a sgàil has a hold of the opposite end of his spear and is trying to pull him off balance. Aileen has taken over defending us against the sgàil with the sword.
“Jaime, I need you!” says Cray.
I crouch under his arm to sweep at where I imagine the sgàil holding his spear must be, but my thrusts hit nothing. Cray tumbles forward in a headfirst roll and is pulled away by his spear.
“Cray!” I shout.
Aileen kicks at the hilt of the sword in front of her. The sword falls from the sgàil’s grip, and Aileen slashes with her hook. We dash through the sgàil’s disappearing wisps in the direction Cray was taken.
The body of a man being dragged in the opposite direction almost collides straight into us. I catch a glimpse of red beard. Donal. Aileen sees him too.
“Help him. I’ll get Cray,” she says.
I don’t want to leave her — and I don’t want to abandon Cray — but if I don’t save Donal, no one will. I run after him, trusting that Aileen and Cray will be able to look after themselves.
I chop at the grass in front of me as I run in case there are hidden shadows lurking there. Donal has managed to get to his feet, but he’s unarmed. He has his back to me, so doesn’t see the sgàil that has picked up a discarded sword. It rises, preparing to stab him from behind. I launch myself at it and jab with my own sword, destroying it just in time. Donal turns at the sound of its dying scream and looks from me to the fallen sword.
“You did good, lad,” he says, ruffling my hair.
He bends down to pick up the sword, but it is snatched away by another sgàil before he can grab it. The sgàil swings it with unrestrained force and lands it deep in Donal’s side. Donal’s eyes widen on impact and he drops to his knees.
“No!” I shout.
I strike at the sgàil. It dodges my sword with ease and launches a counterattack. I stand over Donal’s fallen body and defend us as best as I can. Everything Cray taught me about sword fighting — posture, stance, grip — disappears from my head. It’s taking all my concentration not to drop my sword. The sgàil drives its weapon at me again and again. My arms are tiring, and beneath me, Donal is fading fast.
There’s a surge of cold up my back. A sgàil is on me. I open my mouth to scream, but the wind is knocked out of me. The sgàil pushes me forward with the force of a tumbling boulder. I turn as I fall to avoid being impaled on the other sgàil’s sword, but it still makes contact, slashing my left arm from my shoulder to my elbow. I crumple to the ground. My head is full of noise and thorns. Blood from the wound on my arm pools in front of my eyes. I watch as the soil sucks it away.
Out of nowhere, the Badhbh’s voice drifts into my mind. Blood magic is fed by blood. The more blood you feed it, the more powerful it becomes.
I wonder . . . From where I’m lying, I lift my sword to the cut on my arm. I cover one side of the blade in my blood, and then the other. At first, nothing happens, but then the blood starts to disappear as if the sword is absorbing it.
I’m so distracted, I almost forget about the threat of the sgàilean. I turn my head as the armed one swings its sword directly at my face. A hand reaches out and grabs it just in time. Donal holds on to the blade with trembling fingers, its edge digging into his palm.
“Move! I can’t hold it for much longer,” he says through gritted teeth.
I squirm to one side. Donal lets go of the blade and it sinks into the earth. My sword arm twitches. The blade starts to hum and glows much brighter than it was before. While I’m still holding it, the sword lunges at the sgàil, as if acting on its own accord. In the same stroke, it also tears through the sgàil that pushed me over and then a third that I didn’t even know was there. All of them disappear with ear-shattering shrieks. There’s no doubt in my mind that the sword has changed. It starts to vibrate so fast it makes my hand burn. I fling it to the ground, then crab-scramble to Donal. He’s still alive. I whip off my cloak and press it into his wound. He winces. I take his hand and place it on the cloak.
“You’re going to be all right,” I say. “Just keep applying pressure.”
I prod at my own wound. It hurts like crazy but doesn’t look too deep. I rip off my sleeve and — with one end one held tight between my teeth — tie it above the cut to slow the bleeding.
Whispers to my left. More sgàilean are coming. My sword is where I left it, glowing brighter than ever. I reach for it and feel its power the moment my fingers curl around the hilt. Whatever magic the Badhbh instilled in it has been warped and intensified since the blade came into contact with my blood. A raw, unruly energy pulses through it, which is both terrifying and impossible to resist. The sword is a part of me now; for better or worse we’re connected. The sheer power of it shivers through my wrist.
The Broken Raven Page 25