Warstalker's Track (43 page)

Who’d’ve thought it, though? To have survived the ’Nam and all the shit that went with it, and then die from a poke in the back! And the thing was, no one would know what Dale had confided (that David had told the old man alone): that just as iron could eat away at the substance of Faerie, there were metals there that could do the same to the stuff this World was made of. The stake that had got him had been bound with some kind of greenish metal. It had broken; the metal had dissolved because of the iron in his blood. But suppose a sliver of that metal
hadn’t
dissolved, or dissolved more slowly, or reacted with mortal iron? And if it was a small enough piece, it might not show on X ray.

Which didn’t really matter any more than it mattered that a .44 got you ’stead of a 30.06.

What
was
important was the road he’d took to get here, and nobody but nobody, and certainly not his wonderful, strange, frustrating older boy, would ever be able to say he hadn’t done his best.
Whatever
happened tonight, Big Billy Sullivan had gone down fighting.

It didn’t even hurt much, though he was really tired and kind of thirsty and wished JoAnne would get back with that beer. In the meantime, he wondered if that ongoing wailing didn’t sound like “Amazing Grace.”

Chapter XX: The Darkest Hour

(Lookout Rock, Georgia—Monday, June 30—past midnight)

Sound called David back to consciousness.

He’d heard the Horn of Annwyn once: that which summoned white hounds with red ears to appear from some place that was not of Faerie to devour both the body
and
the soul of whatever they were set upon. It had been on this very ledge, when he, Liz, Alec, Nuada, and a bunch of Faeries he hadn’t heard from since had blundered from that same hidden Track that lay behind the waterfall straight into the clutches of Ailill and his half-mad sister. That horn had saved his life then, but he wouldn’t have said the sound was sweet.

The horn Aikin had just winded, however—perhaps it was merely the fact that it was the first thing that registered clearly after he’d roused from some kind of blackout, but he doubted he’d ever hear anything so beautiful again: high and pure and clear, as though all music were distilled into that one note.

The air trembled. The hiss of rain and the mumble of the waterfall vanished, as though they likewise hearkened to that sound. The Faery warriors wading thigh-deep through a pool full of blood and floating bodies stopped where they were as well.

Which proved their undoing.

For the barest instant, the pool glowed silver as though lit from beneath, then erupted around those gaping warriors: water first, followed by solid shapes—two, three, five
—each
with a lion’s body and the head and front talons of an eagle. Three had wings, two did not, though light pulsed from junctures in furred body armor.

“Gryphons!”
David gasped as he shrank back in dread and awe. Horn or no, the way things had gone tonight it was no given that anything from
there
that showed up unexpectedly could be presumed an ally. And maybe these beasts weren’t. But the first to emerge—one of the big males—dragged a talon along the chest of a Faery who
might’ve
moved to block his way, ripping him open for his trouble. The warrior died screaming through a torn-out throat, courtesy of a second swipe. Might as well have died, anyway: the pain forced his soul from his body, which was as close as the Sidhe came to death when iron wasn’t involved. Unfortunately, he tumbled into David, sprawling him across the bulky mortal he’d seconds before crawled from underneath.

From fighting for his life, David was jolted into playing spectator at what strongly resembled a Roman gladiatorial combat, save that none of the humans were Christian (and the mortals among them were apparently all dead), and most of the lions had wings. And of course there was the small fact that the carnage was taking place in a pool of mountain water.

“Fuck!”
Aikin gasped, staring at the horn as though it had bit him. “Did I do that?”

David didn’t answer, concerned as he was with keeping one eye on the combat (which was obscured by vast plumes of red-tinged water amid which gryphons bit and tore, while Faery warriors had at them with swords, then hands, and finally, in one case, bloody stumps) and, more to the point, with getting his ass out of there.

His and Brock’s, ideally, since he doubted the kid had prospered from saving his life just now, which was the last thing he remembered before he’d gone out. Shielding himself from a particularly strong swath of spray, he freed himself from the bodies sprawled atop him, crawled over another, and finally reached the boy, who was lying face down in a shallow depression. He reached out and nudged him in the ribs with his free hand, oblivious to the blood dripping there.

And almost threw up on the spot.

“No
way!”
he mouthed, flinching away. “No fucking way!”

The kid was
dead!
No way he’d be so limp otherwise. But…he’d just been
alive!
Alive enough to cleave a man’s head with an atasi!

All at once the battle didn’t matter.

Nor did he care when he rose shakily and began firing aimlessly into the corpse of the man who’d tried to skewer him, who, as best he could tell, had cost Brock his life. It was stupid, crazy, and dumb, and utterly irresponsible, here on the fringe of what logic suggested was no longer their battle. But he had to vent
some
anger
right now,
and the only live things he could access were on his side.

The Beretta clicked on an empty chamber.

David sat down with a thud, staring at nothing save Brock’s smooth, blood-spattered face. At least the kid’s eyes were closed and he looked fairly peaceful. He didn’t dare look at the awful gash in his shoulder, though, nor did he heed the steady trickle of his own blood down his arm. Or the ever-increasing pain.

He didn’t notice when the sound of splashing diminished into the familiar rain-hiss and waterfall-rumble, and scarcely heeded more when all five gryphons, none the worse for wear, calmly knelt before a very confused-looking Aikin.

He heard something about a debt fulfilled (there was a lot of that going around), and springs being to Silver Tracks as Pillars of Fire were to Gold, only not exactly because the water and Silver only touched, as opposed to there being an actual identity in the other case.

And he flat didn’t give a damn, any more than he gave much of one about the fact that they’d apparently just won. As for the grandiose plan that had brought them here—well, Elyyoth and Aife were out of it, and Finno was AWOL entirely, though he’d been awfully close to the bad guys when the cavalry had arrived. No way they’d finish the Track stuff now. No way in
hell
Tir-Nan-Og would ever be moved—that way.

Nor did he care when Aikin whispered something to the biggest gryphon, which promptly led the whole pack of them in a series of graceful dives back into the pool, whence they vanished as though sucked down a drain.

And he cared little more when Liz uttered a strangled gasp and laid her hands on his shoulders. Her grip tightened, and he knew she’d also seen. “I got him killed,” David spat. “I fucking got him
killed.
He was just a kid and he—”

“Don’t go there,” Liz warned shakily. “He knew what he was doing. If not for him, I wouldn’t be standing here saying”—she paused, swallowed—“saying we won.”

David shook his head, which ached like a son of a bitch, never mind his arm. “Wasn’t for
me,
somebody wouldn’t be havin’ to call his sister and his mom sayin’ he wasn’t comin’ home again ever.”

Silence. David was dully aware of the others collecting themselves, assessing the situation, tending wounds, inquiring after others. He supposed he ought to make an announcement: apprise them of their loss, which only Sandy among them had noticed. She’d withdrawn at once and now sat alone, grieving silently, but otherwise intact.

His worst wound was inside. Oh, he had a nice graze along the side of his skull that’d make a handsome scar, and there were a pair of ugly red gouges on his left arm, one of which bled persistently. His throat felt tight, too, as though fingers still dug in there. But the worst pain was not of the flesh.

Calvin staggered over to join them, took one look at Brock’s body and sat down abruptly. “Is he…?”

“Oh, yes!”

“I loved that kid!” Calvin choked, gaze fixed stonily ahead.

“Me too,” David managed, slapping a red-stained hand on Calvin’s thigh before burying his face in his hands. “Sure as hell didn’t deserve it!”

“Nobody does. Neither did Elyyoth.”

More silence, but for the hiss of rain, the lapping of troubled water, and the sound of someone rising from the pool to slosh clumsily toward them.

“Just like the song,” David mumbled, because he had to keep talking or go crazy. “He’ll never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.”

Calvin shook his head. “Think he made the second one.”

“Two ends of time,” Liz quoted another song. “Neatly tied.”

“I can’t stand this!” David gritted—and stood.

Fionchadd appeared from the shallows. He was dripping wet but none the worse for wear. “It is working—I think!” he breathed. “I must help Aife.”

David blinked at him and saw that the sloshing had been the Faery woman’s approach. She stood before them now, looking gaunt, grim, and haunted—and tired unto death; yet still beautiful for all of it. Blood oozed from the shoulder that had taken the bullet, spreading into the wet fabric of her tunic. Alec was beside her, nearly invisible behind Fionchadd, but supporting her all the same. The wound in his forearm glistened darkly, but was minor or he’d be tending to it. “Sacred water has drunk deep tonight,” Aife whispered, as though that effort cost her deep as well. “Yet as best I can tell, all this blood, from friend and foe alike, has called a Track, bound it to us, and set it to working that which was in my mind when we were attacked. Our enemies have aided us unaware.”

Myra scowled at her from where she was helping Piper tend a protesting LaWanda. “So let me get this straight, we only needed a little blood, and got—”

“A river. Maybe too much. Maybe more than I can control. But for better or worse, Tir-Nan-Og
is
moving.”

“Yeah, but where?” Liz wondered.

Aife’s face went grimmer still, if that were possible. Certainly she showed no sign of her recent victory. “Where I wanted, maybe. Or perhaps it will go where the Track takes it. Perhaps Tir-Nan-Og will be torn apart and destroyed.”

“By a bunch of fucked-up mortals tryin’ to save it,” Scott growled.

“Tryin’ to save our World,” David corrected bitterly—even good news left him numb right now. “At a price nobody’s ever gonna know.”

“Goddamn it!” Alec shouted. “Can’t you people fucking
hear?
She says she’s not done. She’s gotta try to control it—and she’s worn out!”

“We all are,” Myra sighed, patting LaWanda’s leg and rising. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll try.”

“Better make it snappy,” Kirkwood broke in, gazing toward the overlook behind them. “We got more company.”

“Good!” David snarled. Steeling himself, he reached over and eased the atasi from Brock’s lifeless fingers, then rose to his full height and stared at what was approaching. “I
feel
like killing right now.”

*

For Alec, it was another case of déjà vu. Once before—the same night they’d blundered out of the Tracks in the cliff and heard the Horn of Annwyn summon Ailill’s doom—he’d stood up here with his friends watching ships burn their way out of thin air to hover just beyond the precipice, supported by nothing. Those had been
Lugh’s
ships; their errand, mercy and conciliation. This armada of baleful, dark-hulled vessels bore the arms of Arawn of Annwyn upon their billowing sails. And Arawn had no love for them at all.

Aife inhaled sharply, though from pure frustrated alarm, or the pain in her shoulder, he couldn’t tell. “Help me,” she mumbled. “Others will deal with Arawn, but the Tracks must be mastered
now
.”

Alec glared at her. “I already said I’m with you.”

“Give your strength of will, then, for mine may not suffice.” She gazed down at the water that swirled about their feet. “Of blood, beyond hope, we have enough.”

“But the ships!”

“Others will deal with them. Now aid me or ignore me, but come. We have no grace any longer. Fionchadd, I need you—and anyone else. Now!”

Alec spared one final glance at the fleet massing beyond the precipice, noting that a tall red-haired man with somewhat the look of Lugh, though sterner and angrier, stood in the prow of the nearest vessel. Arawn, Lord of Annwyn, without a doubt.

And then Aife took his hand and led him into deeper water, oblivious to both their wounds.

Kirkwood hesitated barely a second, then strode up to stand beside Calvin, Scott, Aikin, and a very wild-eyed David where they faced the armies of Annwyn across a gap of air he could’ve leapt when he was younger. Cal and Dave had atasi, as did he. Aikin had his shotgun; Scott, Elyyoth’s sword. A ragtag bunch they were, too: bloody and dirty and wet. Yet here they stood, staring down the king of a country that two days ago, in spite of what Cal had told him, he’d never believed existed.

Arawn gazed at them hungrily, likely weighing their strengths, as Kirkwood had seen opposing sides of
anetsa
games do as part of their pregame psyching. He glared right back, refusing to be baited. No one spoke, as though each side conceded first move to the other. A pair of tall warriors eased up to flank Arawn. Both wore helms and cloaks and carried swords, which they unsheathed together and laid casually on their shoulders, at rest but still a warning. Arawn likewise raised his, still not speaking.

“What do you want?” David demanded at last, a hard, impatient edge in his voice. Kid sounded fey, if truth were known; not that Kirkwood blamed him. “Fight us. Help us. Or leave. I really don’t care right now. Just do it and get it over.”

Arawn’s lips curled; his eyes narrowed angrily. “I see we missed the battle we came to witness, so perhaps you should provide us with another.”