The Raven Queen Page 12

  Niamh groaned and raked at her hair with her long fingers. ‘What are we going to do? We should be halfway to the mound now with a suitably unhinged Hound, not stuck in the Morrighan’s stronghold trying to think of another plan!’

  Roisin watched as Fachtna’s hand fell away from Maddy’s face and her fingers curled, still and lifeless. She let out a sob. She had always been terrified of Fachtna, but they had just lost the closest thing to a friend they had in here.

  Meabh whirled at the sound of Roisin’s sob, her green eyes lighting up with glee.

  ‘Silly me, I almost forgot we had spares,’ she said, with a gloating smile. Roisin and Danny shrank back against the wall, wishing they could burrow through the stone as the witch queen walked across and towered over them.

  ‘They’re not Hounds,’ said Niamh. ‘They’re no good to us at all.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Meabh, her eyes flicking from Danny’s face to Roisin’s and back again, her pink tongue licking at her lips, ‘but the Hound loves them. We simply need her to get pleasure from killing. If revenge will not motivate her, maybe saving a loved one will.’

  Niamh looked at Danny and Roisin for the first time, her face lighting up. ‘Ooooh, I like that plan,’ she said. ‘That could work!’

  Meabh stooped and cupped Roisin’s face in one hand, digging her nails into her soft cheeks. ‘What do you think, little rabbit?’ she asked. ‘How far would your cousin go for you?’

  ‘Leave her alone!’ said Danny.

  Niamh squealed like a young girl and clapped her hands. ‘He has fight in him,’ she said. ‘What a good start!’

  The door to the room crashed open and bounced off the wall close to Roisin’s head. She shrieked and cowered against Danny as the heavy wood vibrated under the impact. The Morrighan strode into the room, followed by a black-haired Tuatha and soldiers in Spring’s livery. Her huge black wings quivered with rage as she faced Meabh and Niamh and spread them wide to cast her shadow over them like an angel. White-faced and silent, the two queens dropped to their knees and trembled.

  ‘Treachery,’ hissed the Morrighan. ‘First from my favourite and now from two of my sister queens. How dare you! How DARE YOU!’ She turned to the dark-haired Tuatha. ‘King Aengus, did you know what your wife was planning?’

  ‘No!’ said Aengus Óg. ‘I swear it.’

  ‘Then it seems you cannot govern in harmony with your wife, or that you are so dull-witted that she can sneak around in your kingdom and plan such schemes with a rival court without your knowledge. Or perhaps you are just a liar?’

  Aengus Óg went white and a muscle jumped in his jaw, but his voice was soft and polite when he answered. ‘I can assure you, my queen, that I am none of those things.’

  ‘And yet something is amiss,’ said the Morrighan, before turning back to the trembling queens. ‘You were told, Meabh, that the treaty with the mortal world would hold as long as I am High Queen. Yet not only have you gone against my wishes, but I also discover that you have actually been grooming a Hound, of all the Sighted, to breach the barrier between the worlds. And to compound your treachery, you have involved a fellow queen. What do you have to say?’

  Roisin saw Maddy climb to her feet behind Meabh and Niamh. She turned, looked around the room and straight at Roisin, but Roisin could tell she couldn’t really see anything. Nothing was in front of Maddy’s eyes now but Fachtna’s face. Her eyes were unfocused, wide with horror, her chest hitched with sobs and she began to gag. She staggered away from Fachtna’s prone body, past Niamh and Meabh, colliding with the Morrighan, swatting her velvet gown away from her face before shoving through the guards. The Morrighan turned her veiled face to watch her go.

  Go, Maddy, go! thought Roisin.

  ‘She’s getting away,’ hissed Niamh.

  ‘And where will she go?’ said the Morrighan. ‘The only boats here are Tuatha and they will not move without a Tuatha hand on the tiller. Do not try to distract me. How have you become so greedy and dishonest while I slept? To try to breach my treaty, to reach your hands out for another’s crown—’

  ‘It was not greed or dishonesty that motivated me, it was love for my court and my people,’ said Meabh, holding her head high, her green eyes flashing with anger and pride.

  ‘Meabh, the selfless, nurturing queen, thinking only of others,’ said the Morrighan in mocking tones. ‘Have I truly lived to see this day?’

  ‘It’s true!’ said Meabh. Everyone in the room stiffened to hear her raise her voice against the Morrighan, and the hands of Spring’s soldiers went to the hilts of their swords. ‘You are forcing us to live by a treaty made thousands of years ago. The mortal world has changed. They no longer remember us or the treaty. They don’t know what the mounds are or where they lead to, and they don’t care! When we were first driven beneath the mounds you talked of how we had gone too far with mortals. We had ruled too harshly, been too cruel in our day-to-day dealings with them, until dying free became better than living under our rule. And so they found the courage and the strength to rise up against us. We lost many Tuatha in that war and I know it grieved you. You said we had to learn our lessons and that to keep our people safe there could be no more contact between the worlds.

  ‘But I have been watching them over the centuries and the mortals have grown more numerous, spreading over the world like a plague. It seems the more of them there are, the less they value the lives of their own kind. You talked about our cruelty – well, mortals treat each other in ways we would shudder even to think of. They kill by the thousands, millions even. They set their best and most brilliant minds to work inventing new weapons to slaughter with. People starve to death in the mortal world while their leaders spend money on weapons. Yet they cry out for peace. It will not be like it was before. Mortals will welcome strong leaders, a firm hand on the reins. They have lost their way and cannot live in peace on their own or look after their kind. They must be made to. Mortals will welcome slavery.’

  The Morrighan said nothing and continued to tilt her veiled face toward Meabh’s. Roisin watched her in horror. She’s not actually listening to this? she thought. She CAN’T be listening to Meabh!

  But Meabh clearly thought she was, and the Autumn Queen began to talk faster while she had the Morrighan’s attention.

  ‘Think of your own people, my queen. Trapped together in this world we turn on each other, like rats trapped in a nest. Sooner or later we will kill each other, and everything you have tried to protect – our culture, our people – will be gone. Cast aside these crowns of seasons, these pathetic imitations of the power and territories that were once ours. Let us join together and crush the upstart elf. Then we will go forth into the mortal world and take back what is rightfully ours. This balance you have tried so hard to maintain is crumbling. You can give the Winter crown to none but a Tuatha, and Liadan cannot be left alive. This might be a disaster for Tír na nÓg, but it could be turned into an opportunity for the Tuatha. Tír na nÓg’s time is over. This is a new dawn in our history and you will lead it.’

  Still the Morrighan said nothing.

  Meabh leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘Give me the Hound,’ she said, ‘and I can make this happen for you.’

  A little colour began to return to Niamh’s cheeks and she looked up slyly at the Morrighan through her hair.

  There was a scuffle at the door and a soldier pushed his way into the room, dropping to one knee in front of the Morrighan, who swung her strange face in his direction.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Great Queen, but a selkie has taken the Hound,’ said the Tuatha, trembling as he kept his eyes on the Morrighan’s feet.

  ‘WHAT?!’ Meabh screamed in frustration. Niamh began to weep with anger, gnawing on her fingers.

  ‘How did this happen?’ asked the Morrighan.

  ‘The Hound went out on to the jetty and a selkie was waiting for her,’ said the guard. ‘They spoke to each other and then she went with it into the water.’

  ‘And you L
ET HER?!’ raged Niamh.

  The Tuatha blushed. ‘We did not think to bar her way. There was nowhere she could go.’

  ‘Is she dead?’ the Morrighan asked Meabh.

  ‘No, we’d hear that awful banshee shrieking across two worlds if she was,’ said Meabh. ‘They always know.’

  ‘Well, it seems the Hound has solved our dilemma for us,’ said the Morrighan. ‘Aengus Óg, speak to your wife and get her under control. I want to know she is not scheming in my train as we go to war. Meabh, you will have your soldiers ready to march. We are going to unite the courts and overwhelm Liadan by sheer force of numbers.’

  ‘But the Hound is loose,’ said Meabh. ‘We have to get her back! We cannot simply let her wander Tír na nÓg.’

  ‘I do not care what the Hound does,’ said the Morrighan. ‘Let her run home. I have Liadan and the Winter Court to deal with, and it seems I must handle Autumn and Summer too.’

  ‘But you know that I am right,’ said Meabh. ‘There is merit in what I say. If we think on this and decide, as one, that to march on the mortal world is best for the Tuatha, then we need to have the Hound in our hands.’

  The Morrighan shook her head. ‘I will not split our forces to chase the Hound.’

  ‘But we don’t need to,’ said Meabh, turning to look at Danny and Roisin. ‘She will come to us, if we dangle the right bait. Once we have the Hound again, we can dispose of the spares.’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Danny, scrambling to back away as Meabh advanced on them, but Roisin stuck her chin out and addressed the Morrighan. ‘I can give you what you want!’ she said.

  Meabh stopped in her tracks, her mouth agape, and then she began to laugh. ‘What could you possibly offer?’ she sneered. ‘You have nothing to negotiate with.’

  But the Morrighan was looking at her.

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Roisin. ‘I can think of a way you can keep the crown on Liadan’s head while making sure she can’t cause any more trouble. You can restore balance and still have the courts only as strong as one another. And you can honour the treaty.’

  ‘If you can achieve all this for me, what do you want in return?’ asked the Morrighan.

  ‘Me and my brother, we want to go home,’ said Roisin. ‘I want you to give us safe passage through Tír na nÓg and back to the mortal world. I want your solemn promise no faerie will ever come near me or my family again.’

  The Morrighan chuckled. ‘Anything else you would like?’

  Roisin looked down at Nero, still unconscious by her feet. His mouth gaped slightly and his long tongue was pushed against his teeth.

  ‘Yes. The wolves of Tír na nÓg are to come under your personal protection. No court will be allowed to hunt them and they will be able to live in peace here for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘You amuse me, little one, that you think you can negotiate with a High Queen,’ said the Morrighan. ‘Tell me your plan, and if I think it will work, I will agree to your terms. But if I suspect for one moment that you have been lying to me to buy a few hours of miserable life, or if your plan fails, I will kill you. Do you believe me?’

  Roisin looked at Fachtna’s crumpled, bloody body, the way her white hair straggled on the ground. One guard was even standing on a chunk of her hair. Fachtna had been faerie kind and yet they had tortured her, condemned her to death, and now her body lay forgotten, as worthless as rubbish to them. Roisin was under no illusions what they would do to her and Danny if she gave them the excuse.

  ‘I believe you,’ she said as a soldier cut the rope that bound her wrists. She rubbed at her arms to get the blood circulating again.

  ‘Speak on, little one,’ said the Morrighan. ‘How are you going to give me my heart’s desire?’

  ‘I need a couple of things to make this work,’ said Roisin.

  ‘Name them.’

  ‘I need an apple, some crystal or glass, and I need iron – a lot of it.’

  ‘Where are we supposed to get you iron, girl? You know the stuff is poisonous to our kind. There’s no more than a handful of it in Tír na nÓg, enough to find Hy Breasail and that’s about all.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Roisin, looking straight at Meabh. The Autumn Queen looked startled for a moment and then it dawned on her what Roisin was thinking. She narrowed her eyes in warning but Roisin talked on regardless. ‘I think Meabh has been stockpiling weapons to use against her own people.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Below its placid surface, the water was thick with seals. The selkie female kept her arms around Maddy as they dived, safe from prying Tuatha eyes. Maddy thought of Danny, Roisin and Nero back in the castle and tried to struggle back to the surface, but the selkie had her locked in her embrace. Maddy’s lungs began to burn as the air ran out and she thrashed about, terrified she would drown. When the selkie pinched her nose and held her head back, the last of her breath burst from her in bubbles and she was convinced the creature had tricked her and was now trying to kill her. But a dark shape swam up to her, a whiskered, fanged mouth was pressed to her own and stale air, second-hand air from another’s lungs, was passed over. The pain in Maddy’s lungs eased and she found all she had to do was signal with bubbles she needed more air and the whole process would be repeated.

  At first her mind rebelled at not being able to control her body’s breathing. Panic clawed and gibbered at the walls of her mind and Maddy twitched and squirmed in the selkie’s embrace. But as the selkie swam on, stroking Maddy’s head with one hand and hugging her close to her body for warmth, she began to relax. Seals rose to the surface and dived all around her, bringing back air from the night-time world. The water almost rocked her to sleep. She could hear nothing but the deep, rolling voice of the sea and the cries of the seals as they called to one another. Her exhausted body gave up gratefully and her eyes began to close. She only dimly felt her head being tipped back and the press of mouths as she drifted deep into the blue velvet of sleep.

  It was a blessing, as cool and soothing as balm on a painful burn. For the first time in almost two days Maddy was free of fear and pain. Her mind stopped whirling and she simply let someone else worry about everything. It wasn’t her job, not any more. It was a different world down here, one with its own rhythms and concerns. Tír na nÓg, with all its fear, might as well be on the surface of the moon for all Maddy cared. The mortal world, with all its pain, might as well be in another galaxy. Maddy’s limbs went limp as she was towed along, the lights in her brain going out one by one.

  So it was a shock when the voice of the sea started to get higher as they entered shallower waters. The world above the water grew brighter as a dawn sun rose and sent rays of light into the depths. The seals swirled around them, calling to each other with a series of grunts, clicks and roars as the selkie began to climb toward the surface. They whirled around the selkie and Maddy, round and round and round, until the water boiled with their slipstream, bubbles of air clinging like pearls to their dark pelts.

  It was almost painful to take a breath when their heads broke the surface. Maddy’s lungs nearly burst with the strain as her body automatically dragged in as much of the crystal-clear air as it could. She could feel her sinuses crackling and the corners of her mouth tingled with pain as the oxygen flooded her body. A seal shot up from the depths and breached the surface next to her, flopping on to its back and yawning into the light. It rolled over and swam to Maddy, nudging and butting her with its round head.

  ‘Get on his back,’ said the selkie. ‘We still have a long way to go.’

  Gingerly Maddy stretched out on to her belly as the seal dived beneath her and then slid his body under hers. She wrapped her legs around his torpedo form, but there was nothing to hold on to and the seal’s pelt was smooth and slippery As the selkie began to swim away with powerful strokes of her arms, Maddy laid her hand against the seal’s neck and prayed she would stay on.

  It was awkward. Even though Maddy gripped as hard as she dared with her legs, she still
found herself slipping backwards into the water. The seal was constantly having to stop and flip her forward with a flick of his tail. She was sure she was getting on his nerves and at one stage she even mumbled a ‘sorry’, but he gave no sign that he had heard. As they powered along, more seals rising and diving in the water around them as they followed, Maddy lifted her head into the summer sea breeze and tasted the salt drying on her lips. She felt clean and fresh, and when she closed her eyes against the sun’s rays, her lids glowed carmine red.

  Eventually a grey smudge appeared on the horizon, growing clearer the longer they swam. It was a barren and rocky shoreline, deprived of the smallest scrap of vegetation to soften its jagged edges. There was no sign of life, no animals moved, there was not even a single bird to puncture the sky above it.

  The water became shallower until Maddy was able to climb from the seal’s back and wade through the waves after the selkie, who was striding on ahead, her muscular thighs slicing effortlessly through the water. Maddy was out of breath by the time she caught up with her.

  ‘We’re in the Shadowlands, aren’t we?’ she asked the selkie.

  ‘We are,’ the selkie replied, her eyes scanning the landscape around them.

  Maddy swallowed against the knot of fear that twisted in her stomach. The only person she could remotely call a friend here was Finn Mac Cumhaill, an ancient mortal hero. He brooded with his soldiers, the Fianna, in the heart of the Shadowlands, where even faeries feared to tread.

  She gasped and her legs went wobbly as the force of the revelation hit her. Of course! Finn Mac Cumhaill was literally a living legend. As his story was kept alive in the mortal world, so was he kept alive in Tír na nÓg. She had no idea if he was a man, a ghost or a story made flesh, but he had enough strength to keep himself out of the Coranied’s cauldrons. Enough strength to make himself a force to be reckoned with. He and his men had made the Shadowlands their territory. He brooded in its depths, waiting for the return of his wife, a Tuatha who had been bewitched and turned into a white doe. If she was looking for an army, it was right here.