The Unicorn Hunter Page 15

  Even though it meant more delay, Maddy was relieved she didn’t have to brave that mist tonight. The three of them half jumped, half slid down from their mounts. Fachtna began to unbuckle the girth straps that held the saddles in place on the horses’ backs.

  ‘We’ll untack them and make them comfortable,’ she said. ‘The three of you can use the saddles as pillows. I’m not risking a fire this close to the Coranied – who knows what will be attracted to it this close to the mist. So curl up together and keep each other warm. You’ll need all your strength in the morning.’

  Maddy must have been exhausted because she didn’t even remember falling asleep. But some time in the night the sound of splashing woke her up and she sat bolt upright, terrified something was sneaking up on them from the river. Fenris and Nero lay curled up with their backs touching, their plumed tails draped elegantly over their noses. Danny and Roisin were huddled as tight as they could underneath their jackets, cradling their cheeks with their hands to protect their faces against the stiff leather of the saddles. George lay alongside Roisin’s thigh, flat on his back, legs in the air, his rough pink tongue pushing against his teeth as he snored.

  Maddy looked toward the river and saw a tall, pale faerie step from the water, her skin glowing. Her white hair hung down to the small of her back and her ice-white face was soft in the moonlight, her lips full and ripe. She walked with a supple grace and it was only when she uncurled her wet wings, swept her hair back over her shoulders and wrung the water from it with her long hands that Maddy recognized her.

  Carefully she climbed to her feet, tied the sword belt around her waist and walked over to the faerie, who had just finished wrapping her linen clothes around her body.

  ‘What happened to you, Fachtna?’ she asked softly.

  Startled, Fachtna turned to face her, her expression hardening and her lips lifting in a sneer. Free of the stiffening lime that held it in its customary Mohican, her thick, straight mane of hair swirled around her body in a soft white curtain.

  ‘What do you care, Feral Child?’ she asked as she bent for her sword belt.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Maddy. ‘But for a second there you didn’t … well, you didn’t look like yourself.’

  Fachtna snorted. ‘What a stupid thing to say! How can I look like anyone but myself?’ she said. ‘More fuzzy mortal thinking.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Maddy. ‘You looked, for a second, like someone pleasant – you know, attractive? Like someone you could talk to without being disembowelled.’

  ‘Ah, was I beautiful?’ asked Fachtna, her sneer still firmly in place.

  ‘I wouldn’t go overboard,’ said Maddy. ‘You looked normal, with all that rubbish out of your hair and your mouth closed so I couldn’t see your teeth. Even with the freaky red eyes. Why do you do that to yourself anyway? Didn’t it hurt, filing your teeth down?’

  ‘It did,’ said Fachtna. ‘But no one fears beauty on the battlefield. It had to be done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, Feral Child, someone put steel in my soul and now I can be no other way,’ said Fachtna. ‘Just like you.’

  ‘I’m not like you,’ said Maddy.

  ‘So you say. But you are living in interesting times and now that you are the Hound … well, let’s just say life is going to get even more interesting. Pain will forge your soul and bend it in so many ways that one day you won’t recognize yourself or the things you’ve done. I was soft once. I never thought I would be so good at killing or that I would enjoy it so much.’

  ‘Is that what Meabh meant when she said we had a lot in common?’

  The shutters came down over Fachtna’s face. ‘Perhaps.’ She drew her sword. ‘Defend yourself.’

  ‘You what?’ said Maddy. ‘You can’t touch me, remember?’

  ‘Grow up, girl,’ hissed Fachtna. ‘You’re safe enough. But it’s time you learned to be a proper Hound.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Twice now you’ve got away from me using silly tricks,’ said Fachtna. ‘Do you think you will be as lucky a third time? The Hound is meant to be brave, strong, fierce in battle. You don’t even know how to use your sword.’

  ‘I do!’ said Maddy.

  ‘Prove it,’ said Fachtna.

  Maddy drew her sword and lunged at the faerie, the pointed end aimed straight at her stomach. Fachtna twirled her wrist, the silver blades kissed, and then Maddy’s sword flew out of her grasp.

  ‘Again,’ said Fachtna. ‘Hold your sword up, not dangling down from your fingers. Block me with the flat of your blade. And move your feet! War is a dance.’

  For the next half-hour, Maddy struggled to lift the sword while Fachtna showed her how to attack, block and parry. The faerie did make fighting look beautiful, moving as gracefully over the ground as a snake. Maddy lumbered and sweated after her, not once making contact with the tattooed skin.

  ‘Enough,’ said Fachtna, lowering her sword as Maddy massaged her aching wrist. ‘Practise, girl, if you want to have a hope of survival.’ She bent down to stare into Maddy’s eyes. ‘Because the next time we meet I want to kill a foe worth the fight, not slit the throat of some bawling babe.’ She straightened and looked at the sky. ‘The sun is rising. Wake your friends.’

  Maddy made her way back to the saddles, but when she went to shake Roisin she found she was already awake and staring at her with her big brown eyes. ‘Bonding, are we?’

  ‘I have no idea what I’m doing,’ said Maddy.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Roisin put her hand out and twirled her fingers through the mist as if she was checking the temperature of a bath.

  ‘There’s no moisture in it at all,’ she said. ‘It’s just like smoke.’

  ‘Is it going to be safe to breathe it in?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ said Nero.

  ‘It’s all right for you, you’re lower down,’ said Danny.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ asked the wolf.

  ‘Smoke rises, which means the taller you are, the quicker it will get to you,’ said Danny.

  Without meaning to, they all looked at Fachtna at the same time. She raised an eyebrow as she stared back at them, but no one said a word.

  ‘I don’t think that is going to apply here,’ said Fenris. ‘It’s not normal smoke, mist, whatever we’re going to call it. Besides, the Coranied know we are entering it and why – they would hardly poison us on their borders.’

  ‘Our biggest problem is going to be seeing, not breathing,’ said Fachtna. She thrust her arm deep into the mist and it was as if it had been swallowed from the elbow down. Maddy couldn’t even see a dim outline.

  ‘We’ll leave the horses here; it’s too dangerous to try walking them through this,’ Fachtna continued. ‘If they start to panic in there it will be hard to hold them, and we do not want to risk getting separated.’

  ‘Will they be OK?’ asked Roisin.

  ‘They will be fine,’ said Fachtna. ‘They will wait for us here until we emerge or their riders call them home.’

  Maddy picked up George and zipped him into her jacket. She gasped in pain as he wriggled against her sore ribs, and he rasped his rough tongue over her chin by way of an apology.

  ‘Myself and Nero can smell all of you well enough, but you will have to hold on to each other,’ warned Fenris. ‘It will be too easy for someone to get lost and wander away in there.’

  ‘We’ll have to hold hands,’ said Roisin. ‘Fachtna, you lead the way. Maddy, you can hold hands with her, seeing as you are such good friends.’

  Maddy looked at Roisin, shocked by the spite in her voice, but Roisin just glared at her with a Yeah, and? look.

  Maddy sighed and held out her hand to Fachtna. Roisin grabbed her other hand, Danny held on to his sister and together they shuffled forward into the mist.

  Maddy had felt a tiny bit stupid, venturing into the unknown holding hands, but once they were inside the mist it was a different story. She knew she
was holding Fachtna’s creepy triple-jointed fingers and Roisin’s podgy digits because she could feel them, but she couldn’t see them. She couldn’t see anything. When she looked down she couldn’t even see her own feet.

  Panic and claustrophobia clawed at her and within seconds she found herself fighting the urge to scream. Her breath came in ragged shallow gasps and in her painful, hitching chest it felt like her lungs were shrinking as rapidly as a salted slug. George picked up on her distress and began to squirm, which only made things worse. Maddy clenched her teeth and felt a tiny trickle of sweat slide down the side of her face, but before she could give in to the panic a massive wedgeshaped head butted against her side and she could feel a wet nose nuzzling her hip and she relaxed. She had no idea if it was Nero or Fenris, but just the feel of the warm, shaggy body padding alongside hers and being surrounded by the sharp scent of wolf calmed her down.

  She could hear Danny and Roisin panicking alongside her as their breathing quickened and caught in their chests and she wished they had enough wolves to go around. She was about to say something when a strange smell tickled her nostrils.

  ‘Can anyone smell that?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Is that …’ Maddy sniffed, ‘… doughnuts?!’

  ‘I’m getting chocolate cake,’ said Roisin.

  ‘Pancakes,’ said Danny. ‘Definitely pancakes.’

  Up ahead the mist cleared and Maddy’s mouth dropped open when she saw what was waiting for them.

  A cottage crouched in their way, but it wasn’t built of bricks and mortar or wood. The whole thing, from the front doorstep to the roof, was made entirely of desserts. The roof was slabs of chocolate cake, the walls stacks of pancakes mortared with layers of cream and maple syrup, doughnuts swirled to form a door frame and from the chocolate-log chimney rose a thin wisp of smoke. The door and the window frames were made from chocolate flakes while the windows were flat translucent sheets of sugar.

  ‘Wow,’ said Danny.

  Maddy hadn’t been hungry, but just the sight of that sugary, sweet building made her mouth water. She longed to snap a doughnut off the door frame, cut herself a slice of pancake wall …

  ‘It’s a gingerbread house,’ said Roisin.

  ‘What?’ asked Maddy, half in a daze as she imagined how a chocolate-cake roof tile would taste, melting in her mouth.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ said Roisin. ‘It’s the gingerbread house out of “Hansel and Gretel”, built to tempt passing children so the warty old witch who lives there can snatch them inside and cook them up in her oven.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Danny. ‘I can’t see any gingerbread.’

  ‘Course not,’ said Roisin. ‘Who eats gingerbread these days?’

  ‘Can we have some?’ said Maddy. Her stomach growled.

  ‘Do you remember what happened to Hansel and Gretel?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Let’s go round it,’ said Danny.

  ‘Did the witch do anything to wolves?’ asked Nero’s voice somewhere near her waist. She could hear both wolves sniffing the air.

  ‘Wolves weren’t in the story, but I don’t think we should risk it,’ said Maddy. There was silence for a second and then Nero said, ‘Shame,’ in a quiet voice.

  ‘So do we have a decision?’ snapped Fachtna.

  ‘Yeah, we’re walking on round it,’ said Maddy.

  ‘At last,’ muttered Fachtna and strode off, dragging them all in her wake.

  They skirted the cottage nervously and once they were past it, the mist closed over it again. The smell though was all around them, and it didn’t seem to be getting any weaker. Maddy, Danny and Roisin’s stomachs growled in the silence and Maddy had to swallow repeatedly to keep from drooling.

  They walked on for a few more minutes, found the mist clearing again and the same cottage sat in front of them, waiting for them as contently as a cat in sunshine, the same lazy trail of smoke looping into the air from its chocolate chimney.

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ said Roisin.

  ‘Now can we have some?’ asked Nero.

  ‘NO!’ they all shouted at the same time.

  Fenris sniffed the air. ‘I don’t like this. Let’s try to get away from here.’

  So on they walked, with the smell of all those sugary goodies as strong in their noses as ever, until a few minutes later, there sat the cottage again.

  ‘Are we going in circles or something?’ demanded Danny.

  ‘Did you see us take a turn anywhere?’ asked Roisin.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, shut up then!’

  ‘It’s not going to let us past,’ said Fachtna.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘What I said,’ she snapped. ‘It’s a creature of the mist. It might be a test set by the Coranied, but whatever it is, it isn’t going to go away. You need to deal with it.’

  ‘Us?!’ said Maddy. ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fachtna. ‘This thing comes from your world, your heads. It’s for you to deal with.’

  ‘Great,’ muttered Danny.

  ‘We could just eat our way through?’ said Nero hopefully.

  Fenris sighed. ‘Please stop thinking about eating.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I’m hungry,’ said Nero. ‘We really should have hunted last night.’

  ‘We need to act out the story,’ said Roisin.

  ‘What, take a bite and get kidnapped?’ said Maddy.

  ‘It’s waiting for us and it’s waiting for something to happen,’ said Roisin. ‘We have to sort it out before we can move on, so I suggest we act out the story. And when I say we, I mean you two. It only needs a Hansel and a Gretel, and I’d be no good at fighting off scary witches.’

  ‘Is this really the only way through?’ asked Fenris, a frown creasing his face.

  ‘Unless anyone else can think of another plan,’ said Roisin. They all looked back at her. ‘Fine. This is the only way.’

  Maddy sighed and unzipped her jacket. She handed George over to Roisin. ‘Keep hold of him and don’t let him run off or we’ll never find him again,’ she said.

  ‘Are you going to take the sword off?’ asked Roisin.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Gretel didn’t have a sword,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Then she was an idiot,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Just leave it – we’ve got Fachtna. You might mess the story up,’ insisted Roisin.

  ‘I’m not involving myself in this,’ said Fachtna, her long hooked nose wrinkling in distaste.

  ‘I’m definitely bringing my sword,’ said Maddy. She grabbed Danny by the arm and the two of them walked up to the cottage. They dug their hands into the flake sticks that made up the rustic front door, broke off handfuls of the brittle chocolate and shoved it into their mouths. Maddy looked back at everyone else, raised her eyebrows and shrugged when nothing happened. Danny, cheeks bulging like a hamster, gave a thumbs-up … right before the door burst open and a pair of green hands grabbed them both by the arms and yanked them inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Maddy staggered as she was spun around in the doorway and shoved across the room. The sword tangled in her legs, tripping her, and she screamed with pain as she crashed down on the floor, landing on her ribs. Her swollen eye throbbed in the heat of the room.

  Inside the cottage was just bare boards, on the floor and on the walls, a single-room shack that held nothing but a table laid for one, a bench with some very wicked-looking hooks and knives on it as well as a massive pie dish, and a huge stone oven. An inferno blazed inside it and it throbbed from the power of the heat. Flames glared balefully from a small glass door set in the belly of the oven, casting a hellish glow over the shack. It was the only light in the room and darkness clung as thick as cobwebs in corners and hung from the rafters of the ceiling.

  She heard Danny groan and saw him lying stunned by the bench. Outside the wolves were howling and a heavy body was throwing itself against the door. Paws s
crabbled at the base of the door, but the chocolate cottage seemed to be impervious to the damage a wolf’s granite-hard claws should be able to inflict.

  Maddy heard a low chuckle and turned her head to look at the witch.

  She was straight out of a fairy tale, dressed in black with a hump on her back, green warty skin, her hands huge and tipped with long black nails, and a tall black pointy hat on her head. Its brim shadowed her face. She lifted her head to fix her eyes on Maddy and the flames lit up her face.

  Yellow eyes blazed in a green face and sharp yellow teeth ground and chomped in a wet, slobbering, black-lipped mouth. A long hooked nose and a long hooked chin that almost touched each other completed the picture. She was an echo of Maddy’s nightmares, the storybook witch come to eat her flesh and crunch her bones, only this time Maddy wouldn’t wake up screaming to find her mother comforting her.

  ‘Naughty little mice, nibbling on my cottage,’ she said, and even the voice was from a book, high and creaking. ‘Naughty little mice, come to steal from me. Greedy little mice that think they can take what they want without even a please or a thank-you. But now you have to pay for what you took.’

  There was a movement at one of the windows and Maddy could see a silvery blur through the cloudy sugar glass as Nero braced his huge front paws against the window sill and tried to peer through into the gloom. The witch saw it too.

  ‘Stupid wolf,’ she snarled. ‘Can’t it stay in its own story?’

  Maddy climbed slowly to her feet. ‘No one can get in, can they?’ she asked.

  The witch smiled a ghastly smile at her. ‘And no one can get out. Not until the story is done.’

  ‘You know how the story ends, right?’ asked Maddy. The witch hissed at her as Maddy undid the sword belt, wrapped it around the hilt of the sword and hefted it in her hand like a club. ‘You do realize I get to shove you head first into an oven?’

  ‘Endings can change,’ hissed the witch.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Maddy, grinning and lifting the sword. ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’