The Hunter's Moon (27 page)

fter journeying through eternal day, they came to an abyss of endless night. No moon had ever glimmered here. No sun had ever risen to warm these shadows. Cheerless it was, with a cruel chill and the pall of darkness. Inchoate shapes moved in the gloom, taking form for a moment and then dissolving again. Nothing was solid or permanent. Bewildered, the Company put words on the landscape in an effort to understand. The sullen contours in the distance were a range of mountains. The ground underfoot was a rocky shore. Before them lay a tarn of black water.

Whatever they named in their minds came into being and petrified, but there was no joy in the naming or in what it created. The lack of light and warmth was almost unbearable. The cold seeped into their bones with a groping horror.

For the six humans, this was an encounter with the deepest nightmare of their race. It was as if they had awakened in the dead of night to hear the pitiless secret uttered.
At the heart of life is a void without purpose or meaning. There is no God. There is no love. All is emptiness and loneliness. Since time began, you have been abandoned
.

Even Finvarra was shaken. King of a bright country, he had always viewed night as a time for sport and play. But there were no bonfires here to encourage a dance, no stars to smile on merry capers, no nocturnal creatures calling him to join their revels. This dark land knew nothing of pleasure.

For Gwen, the place was especially disturbing. She recognized the deathly cold that clutched at her heart, the breath of the thing that had come out of the lough. But there was no sign of the shadow, nor of the viperous terror she had glimpsed in its depths. There was nothing here but desolation.

Is this the battle? she wondered to herself. Do we create the enemy? Is it a thing of the mind?

Thinking along the same lines, Granny spoke out loud.

“Perhaps the true test is to keep faith in the dark.”

Her words broke the silence, like a stone dropped into a well. A tremor shook the still weight of the water, as if something below shuddered awake. Ripples crossed the oily surface. A bubbling sound could be heard. The agitation increased, till waves slapped ominously at the shore where they stood.

As the lake convulsed, the Company felt its upheaval in the depths of their minds.
Something wicked this way
comes
. A nameless terror seized them. They hardly dared to breathe. The suspense was torment in itself.

But they didn’t have long to wait.

Like the kraken from the deep, the Great Worm rose up with an eerie silence more dreadful than a scream. He was darker than the night itself. A thousand eyes glared from his body. Gargantuan and glittering, like a spray of cold stars, he appeared to have no head, no tail, no beginning or end. Crom Cruac, the Hunter.

Each of the Company felt the bane of his stare. Merciless eyes pierced their being, burning their souls, reducing them to ashes. He saw all, knew all, extinguished all.

And they sensed what he saw as he beheld them: seven specks of light besieged by darkness.

Though he had no mouth, a fell voice resounded in their thoughts.

Why come you here?

Stunned by his presence, by a titanic reality they could barely grasp, no one responded at first.

Then Findabhair found the will to speak. Her words quivered, small and pale in the dark.

“I am the hostage of the Hunter’s Moon.”

The others immediately closed ranks around her.

I have not called you, but I acknowledge your existence. Do you consent to be the sacrifice?

Before Findabhair could answer, her friends cried out.

“SHE DOES NOT!”

The disturbance in Crom Cruac shook the very foundations of the world. The ground quaked beneath them. The dark tarn seethed and boiled like a cauldron. The distant mountains began to erupt, spewing fire into the sky with billows of black smoke.

You dare to break a timeless covenant
.

They didn’t wait for his attack, but moved instinctively to fight for their lives.

Experienced in battle, Finvarra led the charge. He flew on mighty wings toward the Worm, his sword flashing with light. The rest followed, drawing their weapons as they ran.

Katie scaled a height of rocks nearby and took up position. Silver streaked through the air as she let fly her arrows. The others bore down on the Worm with sword and spear.

Only to find their blades rebound as if his skin were armored.

“The eyes!” cried Mattie. “Go for the eyes!”

Indeed they were the only penetrable area. Spears pierced, swords hewed, and arrows struck their target.

Gwen’s first thought had been for the bird on her wrist. Slipping off its hood, she released the gyrfalcon so it could fly to safety. Only then did she discover the full measure of Faerie’s blessing and her wondrous transmutation.

There was a moment’s blur in which she felt the giddy thrill of flight. Then flashed an onslaught of images. A bird’s-eye view of the battle scene clashed with her own ground-level perspective. She was in her body where it stood, but she was also inside the falcon as it soared into the air.

“It’s me!” she shouted, lifting her spear.

“It’s me!” she screeched, as she dove from above.

Caught off guard by the Company’s audacity, the Hunter was slow to rally and retaliate. Numerous wounds were inflicted upon him. His roars bellowed through their minds. His sight darkened as countless eyes were destroyed. He lost a hundred to Katie’s arrows alone, before he lunged down at her.

With one sweeping gesture, like the crack of a whip, he dashed her against the rocks.

She crashed to the ground with a scream of agony. Crom Cruac moved to strike again.

Mattie rushed to Katie’s side and dragged her out of the way, behind the rocks. Her limbs looked twisted and wrong. Blood stained her clothes.

“Oh God, your legs are broken!”

“Prop me up,” she gasped. “My arms are good.”

“You’re wounded. You need—”

“There’s no time for nursing!” she cried. “If we stop, all is lost!”

Eyes wet with tears, Mattie did as she told him, wedging her battered body between two large stones.

She tried to smile through her pain to comfort him.

“It takes more than one swipe to beat a redhead.”

And once more the archer let fly her arrows.

Mattie returned to the combat, enraged with a frenzy that sought revenge for Katie’s wounds. Each thrust of his lance struck with ruthless fury.

The blow to Katie taught the Company a lesson. They changed their tactics. In a dance of death they advanced and retreated, now striking Crom Cruac, now running from his blows.

Maddened, the Worm came out of the lake and coiled upon the shore. Huge and swollen, he rolled toward them to crush them beneath his weight.

But their smallness was an advantage. They scattered in all directions, only to regroup on the other side to charge him again.

Though she fought well on foot, it was Gwen’s attacks from the air that did the most damage. As with all raptors, the white gyrfalcon was most ferocious in female form. The darling of kings and emperors, its persistence was legendary. This was a creature that never gave up. She swooped with deadly aim, beak and talon tearing at her prey.

Strengthened by the grace of Faerie, Granny fought like a warrior. She had been using her staff as a spear before she learned, to her delight, that it discharged bolts of fire. Then she wreaked more havoc upon the Hunter.

Though Dara saw that his great-aunt had power, he fought alongside her in a protective manner. He also kept watch on Gwen wherever she battled. It may have been this divided attention that caused him to falter, with dire consequence. For he was the one who discovered the ultimate horror.

After piercing a great eye that loomed above him, he retreated too slowly. A viscous fluid splashed onto his arm, searing the flesh to the bone. He staggered back in shock and pain, and shrieked a warning to the others.

But his cry came too late.

Wielding two swords simultaneously, Findabhair slashed and hewed. She fought with a fierce passion, aware that her friends were suffering on her behalf. But despite her swiftness, the Worm landed a blow and beat her to the ground.

Something broke inside her, she felt it instantly. She couldn’t move. As the darkness gathered around her, she saw the eye that mirrored her death. Then she heard and saw no more.

Finvarra had been striking from the air when he spied Findabhair’s plight. He flew to her side, but she lay unmoving. He placed his shield over her even as Crom Cruac lunged to deal a final blow. With sword and spear Finvarra kept him at bay, striking again and again.

The furious assault was too much for the Hunter. The stinging blows too many. He retreated from Finvarra, but not before ruin had been wrought upon his enemy.

Standing before Findabhair to protect her, Finvarra couldn’t escape the poisonous rain of the eyes. His wings were set ablaze. Too shocked to cry out, he dove into the black water. When he crawled out again the flames had been doused, but the wondrous appendages trailed behind him like rags. His eyes were glazed with anguish. In his immortal life, he had never known pain.

“Retreat!”
cried Gwen. Her cries came from above and below. “To the rocks near Katie! There’s a cave. Retreat inside!”

The keen sight of the falcon had spotted the cleft in the rocks. Now the Captain of the Company of Seven shouted new orders from her vantage point. Granny was to distract the Hunter with flashes of fire. Katie was to shower him with the last of her arrows. Under this cover, the others would withdraw.

Mattie ran to lift Findabhair in his arms, to carry her to safety. Gwen reached Finvarra who swooned against her. Dara was close behind, clutching his ravaged arm. He tried to help Katie. In a feat of sheer will, she was dragging herself over the rocks to join them. One by one the Company crawled through the cleft where the Worm couldn’t follow.

The cave was dank and dark, but there was room enough to move. Granny was the second-last to arrive, still firing from her staff. Last of all came the royal gyrfalcon, reluctant to withdraw even at the end. She perched on a narrow ledge above Gwen’s head.

A dismal silence settled over the Seven, broken only by the moans of the most wounded. Granny tore cloth from their garments to make bandages. No one was unscathed; all were battered and burned to serious degrees. But there was one who had injuries beyond the rest.

Gently the old woman laid a hand on Findabhair and stared into her eyes.

“She is dying.”

o, this can’t be happening,” said Gwen.

She gathered her cousin into her arms. Findabhair was unconscious. Gwen’s tears fell freely, and her body shook with heart-rending sobs. The falcon buried her head under its wing.

Mattie stammered his bewilderment.

“This doesn’t … It isn’t … It’s not what I …”

His voice trailed away. What had he expected? A glorious battle? The inevitable triumph of good over evil? Anything but this smell of burnt flesh, this distortion of limbs, these faces so tortured by suffering they were hardly recognizable. And worst of all, the cold fact of death.