The Raven Queen (21 page)

Almost the moment they left the forest, Meabh and Niamh yanked back hard on their horses' reins, the animals' mouths gaping wide as the bits yanked their jaws down. They shuddered to an immediate halt, their hindquarters bunching underneath them, throwing up a shower of dirt as their hoofs ploughed through the ground to bring them to a standstill.

Danny stood up in his stirrups and peered over
Meabh's head. ‘There she is! Roisin, I can see her!' The closest Tuatha soldier turned and slapped him hard across his face, splitting his lip. Roisin sidled her horse closer, leaned over and gripped his hand hard. ‘We're going home!' she whispered. Danny nodded at her, still smiling as he blotted the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘So, Hound,' cried Meabh, ‘you came after all. Are you ready to give me what I want in return for your family?'

‘You must be as mad as Liadan, Meabh,' Maddy called back. ‘I told you before. I'm never going to give you what you want. I'm never going to be the kind of Hound you want.'

Danny and Roisin looked at each other, confused. ‘What's she doing?' whispered Danny. Roisin shrugged, but her excitement was rapidly souring, turning into fear. She hoped Maddy had a plan and wasn't just mouthing off. Though she really couldn't trust Maddy
not
to be mouthing off.

‘There is still time to change that,' snarled Meabh.

Something made Roisin look over her shoulder and she could see a line of dust moving down the road from the White Tower. Someone was coming after them. Meabh might not have as much time as she thought.

‘Yeah?' called Maddy. ‘Well, come on over here and
have a go, if you think you're hard enough!'

That was the final straw. ‘Get her!' screamed Niamh to her soldiers. ‘Bring her to me. Let's cut the little pup open and see how brave she is then!'

Roisin's heart sank as she saw Niamh and Meabh's cavalry form a line and then charge straight at Maddy.

Maddy gripped her reins tight and watched the cavalry charge toward her, the pounding of their horses' gigantic hoofs shaking the ground as they came. Her own horse threw his head up and whinnied in fear. She stroked the long line of his satin neck and whispered, ‘Steady, steady,' in a soft low voice, trying to give the animal confidence she didn't feel. She licked her lips nervously and watched the mist begin to spread through the trees on her right-hand side, outflanking the Tuatha who were getting closer with every beat of her heart.

Wait until you see the whites of their eyes
, Finn mac Cumhaill had said.
Hold your nerve, hold the line, and don't move a muscle until you can see the whites of their eyes
.

Sweat trickled down her back and Maddy's breath whistled from between clenched teeth as she tried to stay calm and trust Finn's advice. Her horse began to sidle backwards, wrenching his head to the side, trying
to force her to let him run as the Tuatha got closer, and it took nearly all her concentration to keep him under control.

Nearly all. She still watched for the whites of their eyes, and as soon as she saw them she screamed, ‘NOW!'

The Fianna ran forward from the mist and formed a line in front of her, shielding themselves as they did so. Each man planted the butt of his pike on the ground, the wicked spears pointing straight at the chests of the first line of the Tuatha horses.

As soon as the Tuatha saw what was waiting for them they tried to pull their horses to a halt, but it was too late. The great beasts had no time to stop, and even though their riders pulled their heads up, momentum carried them forward on to the blades of the pikes. Maddy closed her eyes as the beasts screamed, falling back on to their riders and pulling the pikes from the hands of the Fianna. The horses roared in pain and thrashed on bloody ground as the pikes impaled in their chests whipped and bounced with their every move, striking their riders as they tried to get to their feet and draw their swords. Some Tuatha lay crushed and still beneath their writhing mounts. The Fianna drew the long swords belted at their waists and rushed to attack the Tuatha, screaming a war cry as they went. Maddy
gathered up her reins and urged her horse forward, over the line of crushed bodies.

Roisin cringed as she heard the crump of the Tuatha horses colliding with the shield wall. Danny looked at her, his mouth a round
O
of horror as the horses started to scream. ‘She's got a plan,' he said. ‘That's got to be a good thing, right?'

‘If it gets us out of here alive, yeah,' said Roisin, watching as Niamh prepared to send a second wave of riders into the battle to cut down the Fianna on the ground.

‘How confident are we feeling about that, on a scale of one to ten?' asked Danny.

Roisin watched as Meabh held her hand up just before Niamh's warriors charged. ‘Wait!' Meabh said, watching the mist as it crept alongside them. ‘Where is Finn mac Cumhaill?'

A second later, she got her answer. Finn mac Cumhaill and the rest of his men came riding out of the mist with swords drawn, their faces grim and silent. Their horses moved like ghosts, their hoofs wrapped in cloth to keep them silent. The Tuatha warriors didn't have time to turn their horses to face this new threat and Finn mac Cumhaill's
troops charged straight into their sides, hacking and stabbing. Meabh immediately sent a whirlwind of air about her body, driving the Fianna back, while Niamh threw back her cloak and her body pulsed with a solar flare.

Blinded, Roisin screamed, dropped her reins and clapped her hands over her eyes. Seconds later she felt hands tugging at her and she hit out at the person who was trying to pull her from the saddle.

‘Roisin, it's OK, it's me!' said a familiar voice.

‘Maddy?' she asked, just before she was torn from the saddle and flung to the ground, all the breath driven from her body. She climbed stiffly to her feet, blinking frantically, spots dancing in front of her eyes. She could barely see, only dim shapes. A thud and a yelp nearby told her Maddy had managed to get Danny down from the saddle as well.

Maddy grabbed them both by the arm and began to pull them up the hill toward the mound. ‘Come on, we've got to get out of here,' she panted. ‘Where's Nero?'

‘We had to leave him behind,' said Danny. ‘They grabbed us so fast I don't think he could catch us up.'

‘Liadan killed Fenris, Maddy,' said Roisin. ‘We were too late.'

Maddy clenched her teeth. ‘Then there's nothing we can do. Just keep moving.'

She managed to get them both to the entrance of the mound. Their eyes were red and swimming with tears and they kept looking at her ears rather than at her. They still couldn't see properly.
Maybe that was a good thing
, thought Maddy. They couldn't see the Morrighan and the rest of the Tuatha gathering at the foot of hill, by the bend in the river. They couldn't see the Fianna, fleeing to the boats they had waiting for them downriver, the horsemen galloping into the distance now that their job was done. The mist was creeping up the hill toward them. She had to get them out of here.

‘I need you to step into the mound and walk quickly until you reach the mortal side,' she said. ‘Put your hands on the walls and feel your way along. Apart from the central chamber, it's a straight run. You can do it. The mist of dreams is going to fill the mound behind you. It makes weird noises but you've heard it before so just keep going. Don't stop, don't look back, don't try to turn back.'

‘You make it sound like you're not coming with us,' said Danny, his voice tense. His hands reached out and gathered up handfuls of her hoody and gripped her hard.

‘I'm not,' said Maddy gently, trying to untangle his fingers. ‘I'm going to stay here and finish this.'

‘You don't have to do that!' said Roisin. ‘We got
Liadan – she's never going to come after you again.'

‘It's about more than Liadan,' said Maddy. ‘I realize now, she's small fry compared to the Tuatha. They are the ones I have to stop. I used to be so scared of Liadan, but now I see she's just an irritant. The mist will go a long way to locking the mound, but I don't think it's enough.'

‘You can't kill them,' said Danny.

‘No, but I can give them a kicking that will leave them licking their wounds for a long time to come,' said Maddy.

‘This isn't your job,' said Danny, his face grim. ‘You're coming back with us.' He gripped her hard again, and this time Roisin leaned forward and grabbed a handful of her clothing as well.

But right at that moment the mist began to gather around them as it funnelled into the mound. The split souls chattered and jabbered with excitement and some took shape for a moment, arms and hands snaking out of the mist to prise Danny and Roisin's fingers off Maddy and to push the siblings ahead of the mist deep into the mound.

‘Thank you,' Maddy said. Hands reached down and patted her face and stroked her hair as the mist flowed over her.

‘Maddy …!' she heard Roisin wail from deep inside the mound. ‘Please come with us before it's too late. We love you!'

She sobbed at that and her knees almost buckled as she pressed the back of her hand to her eyes. ‘I love you too, both of you,' she called into the mound, her voice breaking. ‘Tell Granny and Granda I will miss them and I love them.'

There was one last, desperate wail from Roisin that faded away, and then the dregs of the mist were sucked into the mound. She watched as the mound sealed itself up and she was faced with a grassy bank, solid and innocent as the hill it stood on.

She tipped her head back to stop the tears from spilling down her face and looked up at the sky. The sun was going down and the clouds were a fluffy baby pink. This world, this mirror image of the mortal one she would never see again, was so beautiful it made her throat ache.
This is it
, she thought. I
will never get to grow up
. She thought wistfully of pretty, witty Kitty. I
would have liked to have danced like her, in a pretty dress. Just once
.

She braced herself to turn and face the Tuatha when a punch to her shoulder sent her sprawling face down in front of the mound. She winced, and when she opened her eyes a pair of dirty grey feet with black toenails were level with her nose. She looked up at Una. ‘That really hurt,' she said.

‘Well, an arrow in the shoulder will do that to you,'
said Una. ‘Give it ten minutes and it's
really
going to hurt.'

‘Do you reckon I have ten minutes?' said Maddy.

Una looked over Maddy's head and wrinkled her nose. ‘Probably not.'

Maddy raised her hand. ‘Here, help me up, will you?'

She sobbed with pain as Una tried to pull her to her feet as gently as she could and then she turned to face the Morrighan.

What was left of the Tuatha army was ranged against her at the bottom of the hill, the bend of the river marking their boundary. The last of the Fianna were fleeing back towards the Shadowlands and Maddy was relieved the Tuatha were letting them go. All their attention was focused on her, which was exactly what she wanted. The monarchs looked sullen and angry, all except Nuada, Sorcha's husband, who had a satisfied smile on his face and a bow in his hand. Maddy guessed he was the one who had shot her. Cernunnos and the Morrighan were unreadable, as usual. The Morrighan's veil was back over her face.

‘I should have put you down when I had the chance,' she hissed. ‘Hounds are nothing but trouble. Too many Tuatha have died today because of you. And now you think fit to break the treaty. We were given one night a year, and one night we shall have.'

‘Not any more,' said Maddy, swaying on her feet as the pain in her shoulder began to get worse.

‘Do you really think that mist will stop us?' sneered the Morrighan.

‘It stopped you from walking through a fair bit of what you called your territory,' said Maddy. ‘So, yes, I think it will stop you from getting through one doorway. But it's not like that's all I've got planned for you.'