Fireshaper's Doom (36 page)

“But what if we can’t follow the trail from the lake?”

“Then we’ll just have to come back here and wait for the Watchers to leave.”

“We cannot wait that long,” Nuada said. “Or at least, I cannot. We are close to success, I believe that. We have no choice but to chance it.”

Regan cocked her head thoughtfully. “Well, the boy is correct about the Watchers—and I think, in the absence of any better suggestions, we had better give his a try.”

“But what about Nuada and Froech?” Liz asked. “They can’t go in the lake.”

“No,” Gary observed. “But if we were to leave Nuada’s shirt with all the blood on it here, and we kinda clumped up around him while we passed the Watchers, maybe they wouldn’t notice him. Maybe it’d even draw them away!”

“Likely this solution will displease both our horses and our noses,” Nuada said slowly. “Yet it seems the best plan.”

“Yep, shore does,” Uncle Dale agreed. “Can’t say I’m too keen on takin’ a bath in a lake o’ blood, but I reckon it won’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“Firearrow will certainly not like it,” said Froech. “He hates the smell of blood, and he hates the Watchers more.”

“Snowwhisper does not like them either,” Regan replied, “and the other two are likely to be worse, for they were bred for duty in the Lands of Men.”

“Couldn’t you blindfold them, or something?” Gary suggested. Alec shook his head in disgust. “You can’t blindfold their noses, dummy; even I know that.”

“But if we were to lead them,” Regan continued, “and maintain strict control…”

“And somebody’ll have to stay on shore with Nuada, in case they decide to attack then.”

“Why can’t he just stay on Snowwhisper, and somebody lead her in just a foot or so?”

“But that still leaves Froech!”

The Faery boy slapped Snowwhisper’s sleek gray hip. “I will sit behind Nuada, and hold him. It would be an ill thing were he to fall off.”

Regan shook her head. “Not a pleasant possibility.”

“Looks like it’s the only one we’ve got, though.”

The decision made, they rode toward the lake, following Ailill’s trail as far as they could until it deserted the Track and arched away to the left. Fortunately, their earlier speculations appeared correct: the shell-beasts
did
seem more interested in Ailill’s trail.

Though it had been his idea, Alec found himself suddenly reluctant to enter the lake of blood. Instead, he stood at its margin, staring dubiously at the wet copper sand. The stuff was inches from the toes of his Nikes, moving with a fearful sluggishness. The odor of corruption was almost overpowering.

Liz did not pause. She simply set her mouth in a hard line and strode into the stuff until she was a little more than knee-deep in it, then sat down so that only her head showed above the surface. When she rose an instant later, her white jeans showed dull red. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and slogged back to shore.

The precedent set, the others followed her example, with Uncle Dale, Regan, and Liz leading the skittish horses, all except Snowwhisper, whom they left on shore with Nuada.

Alec watched them return, their clothes dyed red in all its myriad shades from pink to deepest burgundy. Even the horses showed dark stains almost halfway up their barrels.

Gary was the last to emerge. “Well, how do we look?” he cried jauntily as he dashed up to stand before Nuada. The Faery lord opened crusted eyes, managed a half-smile. “Red is how you look—red and wet, and smelling of death.” He glanced at Regan. “May I presume we are ready?”

Regan nodded from the ground beside Snowwhisper’s head, and took up the makeshift reins as Froech climbed up behind Nuada, pausing to help the Faery lord out of his bloody shirt, which he tossed to the sand distastefully. The rest of the company closed in tight formation around the mare, with Liz and Uncle Dale and the reluctant Gary leading the remaining horses.

“Now!” the Faery lady whispered. “And may Dana’s luck go with us.”

Slowly, carefully, they began to move toward the line of footprints they could dimly see ahead. Alec found his breath coming slow and shallow, at odds with his pounding heart.

Closer…

One of the Watchers looked up, its nostrils dilated uncertainly, its horn-ringed head snaking in slow arcs from side to side. One of its fellows did the same, and then another, as agitation spread among the shell-beasts.

“Damn!” Liz gritted.

“And shit too,” Gary added, pointing toward the nearest Watcher.

The creature had commenced waddling toward them, its horn-shod claws gouging into the copper sand. The pearlescent interlaced swirls lacquered on its shell reflected the moonlight in a way that was almost hypnotic.

Alec found himself tracing one of those patterns with his eyes until they began to water. When he blinked and looked again, the beast had come twice its body length closer. It was now scarcely fifty yards away.

Another beast took a tentative step forward. A clawed foot smashed down on one of Ailill’s delicate footprints, obliterating it.

The leader looked up, nostrils flaring wide as it sifted higher breezes. “It has noticed us,” Regan whispered.

Firearrow screamed, nipped viciously at Uncle Dale’s restraining hand.

Bessie started, reared, eyes flashing.

Cormac’s horse did likewise, jerking free of Gary’s grip.

“Shit!”

“Hold ’er, boy!”

“Can’t.”

“Ohh!”

All at once the three riderless horses were rearing and stamping, white-eyed as the scent of shell-beasts and blood drove them wild with fear.

“Damn things are getting closer, boys!”

“Dammit, do something!”

“It’s this friggin’ horse!”

“Let them go!” Froech’s voice rang out. “Perhaps the beasts will follow them.”

“But what about us?”

“We can run.”

“What about Nuada?”

“He’s okay. Regan’s still got control—”

“Can’t hold on—”

“Damn!”

“Shit, there they go!”

Faced with more than they could reasonably stand, the horses broke loose and galloped wildly back down the beach.

Snowwhisper alone did not run. Regan had closed her eyes, and laid one hand firmly against the mare’s forehead, and though the frightened horse’s eyes were red and wild, she remained steadfast.

One or two of the shell-beasts shambled after the frightened horses, but the bulk of their number remained where they were, continuing their slow approach toward the horrified knot of people.

“Dammit!” Gary shouted suddenly. He grabbed his spear out of Alec’s startled hands, and began to run after the horses.

Alec was beside him in an instant, caught him by the arm. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, fool?”

Gary pointed to his feet where the tatters of Nuada’s bloody shirt lay upon the sand. He swept up the discarded garment and wrapped it around his hand. “Gonna be a decoy.” He grinned and inclined his head toward the beasts, which seemed to have slowed in confusion as they began to notice him.

“God, no!” Alec cried. “You’re crazy, G-man, maybe Darrell could, but you’re—”

“Not crazy, just fast—faster than anybody else here, I bet. I’m pretty sure I’m quick enough to avoid them on foot. Anyway, we’re not talking about the Peachtree Road Race, it’s just a quarter mile or so.”

Gary grinned and took off, loping at first in long, easy, effortless strides toward the nearest Watcher. At the last possible moment he veered off to pass between it and the one closest to its left.

He was behind them, then, and running faster, as the beasts whirled around, some tripping over each other as he flashed along at their backs. Sometimes he leapt over their long, club-ended tails, sometimes
stepped
on those tails, and once—to Alec’s dismay—he ran up onto one beast’s shell and vaulted from it to the next and the next before returning to the ground.

“Christ, what’s he trying to do, kill himself?” Liz moaned, as Alec rejoined them and the company began to jog along the lake’s edge.

“No,” Alec panted beside her. “Look. He’s swatting them with Nuada’s shirt—leaving a trail of blood. See? They’re attacking each other.”

And indeed they were. One shell-beast had reared onto its hind legs and was trying to gnaw a hole in the blood-spattered shell of its neighbor, while that beast in turn snapped its turtle beak helplessly, unable to twist far enough around to nip its attacker’s leg.

And more were joining the fray.

The company pounded breathlessly along the shore, keeping one eye on the trail, one on the beasts, and one on Snowwhisper, who was trotting along with the rest of them. Froech was doing his best to keep Nuada upright. Nuada himself seemed to be hanging on, though his face was almost white.

Three-quarters of the way now, and Gary was waiting for them.

No—he had turned and was running back toward the nearest beast. And as he did, he wadded up the shirt, and—when he dared come no nearer, for the beast had lowered its snout to meet him head-on—threw the bloody fabric at it so that it slapped across the Watcher’s eyes, effectively blinding it.

The beast shook its head, but a sleeve snagged on one of the short horns near its eye and would not come off.

“Toro! Toro!” Gary cried happily, and with that he raised his spear and thrust it into the gap between head and shell—exactly, had he known, as David had done during his own first desperate encounter with the creatures.

Smoke welled forth, a foulness in the air, and blood came streaming out to hiss on the copper sand.

One of its fellows saw it then, or smelled it, and bellowed loudly before it began a mad clamber across the wounded creature’s shell to clamp its jaws firmly in the loose, naked skin at the base of the neck. The others quickly joined it.

“Gah!” Liz cried. “Gross!”

“But he’s bought us the time we need,” Froech panted. “Hurry now. We have but a short way to go.”

And so they ran, as they had never run before, their leaders pattering beside Ailill’s prints, the followers simply doing their best to keep up, with Froech holding the now unconscious Nuada upright before him.

Gary joined them a moment later, a gloss of sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. He grinned, and raised hooked fingers to Alec. “You owe me one, kiddo.”

Alec clasped the hand in the MacTyrie Gang grip. “Right on, bro!”

“But did you have to throw away the spear like that?” Liz groaned.

Gary looked suddenly contrite. “Oh, well, I kinda got carried away.”

“Indeed you did,” came Regan’s voice, sounding unexpectedly decisive. “You lost one of our few remaining weapons, for one thing. Leaving the shirt was no bad notion, but casting your spear away thereafter was.”

“Too late to cry over
that
spilt milk, though,” Uncle Dale interjected. “Best we be hightailin’ it, since we don’t have but one horse now! That’ll set us back, some.”

“Aye,” Regan agreed. “Froech, since we have lost Firearrow, you must be our Tracker now.”

“As you will, Lady,” he replied, “if someone will see to Nuada.” Uncle Dale and Alec braced the wounded Faery while Froech slid off Snowwhisper’s back and Regan resumed her accustomed seat. “The trail leads away from the lake, I think,” Froech said after a moment spent examining Ailill’s spoor.

“And let us hope nothing chooses to follow us,” Regan added, “for Nuada is beyond my help now. Only his own will sustains him.” And Alec, who heard this, could only shudder.

Chapter XXXVI: Off the Track

(The Straight Tracks)

Pain was all the world, and all the world was pain.

And Ailill-who-was-a-deer could not escape it.

He had tried, had run till he could run no farther; walked until that effort, too, became too great; now staggered on, though all he wanted was to rest, to sleep the dreamless sleep of tired beasts.

But he must keep on, for Faerie had laid a call on him, which he could neither answer nor ignore. And now a newer, more compelling summons dragged at him as well, to which he
could
respond.

Morwyn’s spell had found him, had he but known. And it drew him like a salmon on a line.

He fell, tried to rise, fell again, felt muscles rip along his wounded haunch, felt his skin tear as rough rocks grabbed it. Cracked an antler. The sun beat against him: too hot, and the air too

wet.

Finally he rose, followed the Track, followed the Call. The gold was before him and that was enough.

He was fading quickly now. Ailill was almost gone, a pale shadow traced upon a well-drawn map of bestial instinct: dreaming and walking—running sometimes—all in a fog of pain.

A wall of rock rose up before him, shocked him almost awake. A cleft broke the brightness of the sun’s glare on a thousand flecks of mica. The Track led there: a promise of coolness at the heart of the mountain.

He entered, passing under a veil of water that he scarcely felt. Darkness enfolded him; his antlers scraped against damp stone. The Track was the only light.