When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (30 page)

Teagan looked back. Jing was almost to his car, clearing a path through the Highborn with the bat, and Angel and Donnie were behind him. But Abby wasn’t with them, and Leo and Rafe weren’t running. They were standing between the Highborn and Mr. Wylltson. Leo had his knife out, and Rafe had a gun in his hand. Not a plastic thing like Mrs. Santini had been carrying, but something that a movie mobster would carry. The Highborn started forward. Teagan heard a shot, and saw a shape shifter go down. Then another shot, and another.

“Go, Tea!” Finn yelled, pulling her away. “Don’t let it be for nothing.”

There were others running past them—Highborn who had figured out what was about to happen, and were running for their lives.

“His father’s sword he hath girded on
,

And his wild harp slung behind him;

‘Land of Song!’ said the warrior bard
,

Tho’ all the world betray thee.”

She could hear pain in her father’s voice, and she glanced back once more. The place where John Wylltson stood was nothing but seething shadows, but impossibly, impossibly, he was still singing. They must be reaching inside him now, like they’d reached inside her mother. Twisting, tearing.

“One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard
,

One faithful harp shall praise thee!”

His voice was breaking, and it was still too far to the gate. She wasn’t going to get Aiden through it. But suddenly it wasn’t one voice behind her. It was two—someone was harmonizing with John Paul Wylltson, a female voice lifting over his.
Zoë
. The dance therapist had somehow made it after all, through the chaos of Highborn. Her dad’s voice was growing weaker, and Zoë’s sounded like it was in an echo chamber.

“The Minstrel fell! But the foeman’s chain

Could not bring that proud soul under;

The harp he lov’d ne’er spoke again
,

For he tore its chords asunder—”

And then Teagan’s feet were on cobblestones as the sky turned bright behind them. Raynor had returned, and she knew her father was dead.

Twenty-seven

P
EOPLE
will die
. That’s what Raynor had said. This is war. This was what Finn had been trying to save her from by running after they met.
The wrong people will die
. Her dad. Mamieo. Abby . . . no, Abby was right beside her.

“Oh, my god,” Abby was saying.
“Oh, my god.”

There were Fir Bolg and Highborn, phookas and lowborn goblins all around them. The smell of cooking flesh hung in the air between colored tents and wooden stalls.

“Samhain Fair.” Finn was on the other side of her. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

He was right. Teagan took a step. She couldn’t collapse, because Aiden would be killed here just as surely as he would have been at Rosehill. Taking care of her brother meant moving. Thinking. Not collapsing in shock and grief.

The crowd was larger than it had been the last time Teagan had been here, with more Highborn walking among the phookas and Fir Bolg slaves. The reason was less than fifty feet away—a small redheaded girl in a cage.
Samhain is coming
, Teagan realized.
Everyone gathers to hunt a girl child through the woods
.

They apparently put the child on display before the hunt.

Two massive phookas, one with the head of a bull and the other with the legs of an elk but the torso and head of a man, guarded the cage. A giant redheaded Fir Bolg man in a leather apron and very little else stood before them. He held a hammer in his hand.
The child’s father? Brother?

A lady in Victorian-era dress and her companion, a man wearing a suit that could have been from a sixties sitcom, turned to Abby.

“This will be fun,” the woman said.

“Whips, eh?” The man winked.

Abby looked down at Aiden’s whip, which was still in her hand.

“Ew,” she said. “Like I’d be into that crap, you sicko.”

“Don’t start fights, Gabby,” Finn said, stepping between them. Teagan could see Gil dodging through the crowd, and Seamus McGillahee pushing his way through to them. Some of the Highborn had made it through the gate as well, and were talking excitedly and pointing at Finn.

“The Mac Cumhaill,” someone shouted. “Kill him!”

Phookas and booth-keepers, Highborn and their Fir Bolg slaves, all were staring and pointing now.

Seamus McGillahee grabbed the whip from Abby’s hand. He jumped up on a stack of wooden crates and cracked it over his head.

“Glaine ár gcroí!”
he shouted. There was power in his voice.

Purity of our hearts
.

“Neart ár ngéag!”
the redheaded giant by the little girl’s cage bellowed, catching the fire.

Strength of our limbs
.

He swung his blacksmith’s hammer underhand, hitting the elk-man on the chin.

“Beart de réir ár mbriathar!”
the Fir Bolg in the crowd roared as blood gushed from the phooka’s mouth.

Action to match our speech
.

The crowd erupted in chaos, the redheaded man tearing apart the cage with his bare hands, Fir Bolg attacking their Highborn masters, phookas attacking everyone, lowborn goblins snatching what they could from booths and stands and running with it.

Finn grabbed Teagan’s arm with one hand and Abby’s with the other and dragged them away from Seamus and the crowd into the narrow space behind the booths, where phooka children played in filthy rags the last time they had been here. Gil was right on their heels.

“We need to run.” Gil’s ears were flat against his head. “Really fast.”

“I agree,” Finn said. “Can you get us out of the market?
Without
going through the phooka village?” The phooka shook his head.

“Tea?” Abby tugged on her sleeve. “We’ve got company.”

A lowborn goblin child had crawled out from under a pile of trash and was staring wide-eyed at them. Her mouth opened to scream—and then her eyes went to Finn and her hand went to the string of green glass beads at her throat. Teagan could see the blush spread even through the dirt on the girl’s face.

“Filthy Fir Bolg,”
she said. “You came back!”

“You know her?” Abby asked.

“We’ve met,” Finn said. “I put a coin in her pocket. Remember, girl? We’re not here to cause you any trouble. Just go on and leave us be.”

She looked past him at the growing riot in the market. Teagan turned to look as well. The blacksmith had the child from the cage and was carrying her triumphantly on his shoulder; a vendor’s booth was aflame.

The goblin girl smiled at Finn, then kicked trash away to expose a hole covered by a wooden grate. The smell emanating from it made it clear that if this was a storm drain, it also served as a sewer. She pulled the grate away and slipped in. Her head poked out, and she motioned for them to follow.

“I’ll check it out,” Finn said. He squeezed himself down the hole. The riot was growing more violent, and Teagan was afraid it would spill into the alley before Finn came back.

“Tea,” he called from the darkness. “I think there’s a way. Hand the boyo down.”

Teagan had to pry Aiden’s hands from around her neck, but once she did, he was almost limp as she handed him down. Lucy glared at her from his hair. Teagan was glad to see the sprite had made it home; she hadn’t even thought about the creature since all this had begun.

Abby went next, barely managing to fit through the small opening.

“Go on, Gil,” Teagan urged.

“No.” Gil’s ears swiveled toward the shouts and screams behind him, and he was trembling. “You hide first.”

Teagan lowered herself into the sewer. She felt Finn’s hands around her waist and let go. The tunnel was arched and she could stand upright, but Finn had to stoop. The ancient masonry was damp and worn, but it wasn’t dark. The fungus on the wall Finn had propped Aiden against was glowing in multicolored glory.

Gil dropped down beside her.

The goblin girl was gaping at Aiden as if he were a small saint in a niche on the wall. In the soft light she did look like the statue at Rosehill Cemetery. A baby Greenteeth.

“The light’s automagical,” Abby whispered. “It just turned on.”

“Bioluminescence,” Teagan guessed. “Luciferin exposed to oxygen and the enzyme . . .” Her voice trailed off. This Hákon didn’t hunt facts. It leaked them. How could she be alive, still moving, still breathing, much less reciting rote facts about biology?
Dad is dead
. Aiden wasn’t crying, but she could see the reality of it sinking into him, too, already wrapping him in silence.

Gil poked the wall with his finger, and the goblin girl slapped his hand.

“Don’t break it!” she said.

“Why is there light?” Gil asked.

“Mag Mell is happy to see the boyo,” Finn told him. “That’s why. She tends to celebrate when he’s around.”

Even the air near Aiden was better—it still smelled organic, but now it was almost loamy, as if the process of breaking down the sewage had accelerated.

Gil reached for the shining fungus again, then drew his hand back when he saw the lowborn girl’s glare.

“What’s your name, you?” he asked her. She tipped her head, apparently considering a long list of nom de plumes before she decided on the best one for the situation.

“Peggish.”

“Not her real name,” Finn told Abby. “You don’t tell
anyone
here your real name, Gabby, or use ours. Come on, then. If we can drop down here, others can as well. We need to move away from the drain.”

Teagan picked up her brother. Lucy really didn’t like it down here. The sprite had woven herself so tightly into Aiden’s hair that she couldn’t be seen. Probably afraid of sprite-eating spiders in these tunnels, or something worse.

The bioluminescence died behind them but bloomed ahead as they walked, lighting their way. Gil stayed close to Teagan, and Peggish insisted on walking on the other side, in the very brightest part of the light. Abby seemed to be taking it all in stride, as if she ran from riots and walked down the sewers of Mag Mell every day of her life.

The tunnel branched, and Finn chose the one on the right. They’d gone only a few feet down it when he stopped by a pile of rubble.

“I have to go back for McGillahee,” he said. “If he’s still alive, I can’t leave him in the middle of a riot, especially not one he started to save our necks. You wait here and keep your ears open for anyone coming down the tunnel. If it’s me, I’ll whistle like so”—he gave a low, two-toned note. “And if it’s not, or I don’t come back, you take the boyo on. I’m thinking he’ll be safe if we can get him to Yggdrasil.”

Teagan settled herself on the blocks of stone, never letting go of her brother. Finn reached out to brush the hair out of her eyes and tuck it behind her ear.

“I don’t have the words,” he said, “to tell you how sorry I am about your da. About Mamieo. About them all. If I were the saint Mamieo thought I was, I’d have been crying out to the Almighty from the moment I met you, asking the Creator of Creation to keep you safe. But I don’t have words. All I’ve had from the beginning is my hands and my heart and my will to protect you.” He caught her tear on his fingertip. “I wish to God I was a saint, girl, and my prayers could end this now.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back.”

Gil followed him as far as the branch in the tunnel, then squatted down to keep watch, but Peggish followed Finn away.

“Gabby,” Teagan said when he had gone, “how did you get here?”

“Gabby?” Abby looked offended for a second, then nodded. “I get it. No real names, right? So, I was seeing all this stuff.” Abby shrugged. “So I thought I would try to follow you.” Teagan nodded. The sprite bite had done more than give Abby second sight, then. Because she shouldn’t have been able to walk in Mag Mell. Not in her right mind. “I told Jing if he ever wanted to see me again,” Abby went on, “to get his butt out of there. I love him, T—Rosebud.” She suddenly sounded very lost. “I figured that out right after we started running in opposite directions.”

“I saw him almost to his car,” Teagan said. “I think he made it.”

“Of course he did.” Abby was trying to convince herself. “He’s the Mighty Khan, right? But, Rosebud”—there were tears in Abby’s voice—“ . . . your dad.”

Teagan nodded. “Gabby . . . Leo and Rafe didn’t run. They were standing with him, holding the shape shifters back. Zoë was there, too. At the end.”

Teagan felt Aiden stir in her arms, but she couldn’t hide it from him. He must have heard Zoë’s voice as clearly as she had. Abby put her arms around them and they sat that way—Teagan’s arms around Aiden, and Abby’s arms around them both, and all of them crying—until they heard Finn’s whistle in the tunnel.

Teagan sat up and wiped her face on her sleeve. If she was going to keep Aiden alive, and stay alive herself, she’d have to be as tough as Finn. He’d shut his emotions away when he’d found Mamieo’s body, focusing on the problems at hand.

“Our faces are totally going to pucker, right?” Abby said. “I’d hate it if Jing saw me like this.”

Seamus came around the corner first, with Finn and Peggish right behind him.

“You’ve been in Mag Mell less than ten seconds and you start a riot?” Finn was saying.

“And I survived it,” Seamus pointed out. He had Aiden’s whip coiled in his hand. “It’s the luck of the McGillahees.”

“You’re not supposed to use your real name here,” Abby said.

“I’m well aware of goblin ways,” Seamus said. “I’ll still go by McGillahee.”

“What was that you yelled?” Abby asked.

“The motto of the Fighting Fianna,” Seamus explained. “I just reminded the Fir Bolg of who they were meant to be.”

“He has them all convinced that
he’s
the Mac Cumhaill,” Finn said.