The Raven Queen Read online

  ‘There is still time to change that,’ snarled Meabh.

  Something made Roisin look over her shoulder and she could see a line of dust moving down the road from the White Tower. Someone was coming after them. Meabh might not have as much time as she thought.

  ‘Yeah?’ called Maddy. ‘Well, come on over here and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough!’

  That was the final straw. ‘Get her!’ screamed Niamh to her soldiers. ‘Bring her to me. Let’s cut the little pup open and see how brave she is then!’

  Roisin’s heart sank as she saw Niamh and Meabh’s cavalry form a line and then charge straight at Maddy.

  Maddy gripped her reins tight and watched the cavalry charge toward her, the pounding of their horses’ gigantic hoofs shaking the ground as they came. Her own horse threw his head up and whinnied in fear. She stroked the long line of his satin neck and whispered, ‘Steady, steady,’ in a soft low voice, trying to give the animal confidence she didn’t feel. She licked her lips nervously and watched the mist begin to spread through the trees on her right-hand side, outflanking the Tuatha who were getting closer with every beat of her heart.

  Wait until you see the whites of their eyes, Finn mac Cumhaill had said. Hold your nerve, hold the line, and don’t move a muscle until you can see the whites of their eyes.

  Sweat trickled down her back and Maddy’s breath whistled from between clenched teeth as she tried to stay calm and trust Finn’s advice. Her horse began to sidle backwards, wrenching his head to the side, trying to force her to let him run as the Tuatha got closer, and it took nearly all her concentration to keep him under control.

  Nearly all. She still watched for the whites of their eyes, and as soon as she saw them she screamed, ‘NOW!’

  The Fianna ran forward from the mist and formed a line in front of her, shielding themselves as they did so. Each man planted the butt of his pike on the ground, the wicked spears pointing straight at the chests of the first line of the Tuatha horses.

  As soon as the Tuatha saw what was waiting for them they tried to pull their horses to a halt, but it was too late. The great beasts had no time to stop, and even though their riders pulled their heads up, momentum carried them forward on to the blades of the pikes. Maddy closed her eyes as the beasts screamed, falling back on to their riders and pulling the pikes from the hands of the Fianna. The horses roared in pain and thrashed on bloody ground as the pikes impaled in their chests whipped and bounced with their every move, striking their riders as they tried to get to their feet and draw their swords. Some Tuatha lay crushed and still beneath their writhing mounts. The Fianna drew the long swords belted at their waists and rushed to attack the Tuatha, screaming a war cry as they went. Maddy gathered up her reins and urged her horse forward, over the line of crushed bodies.

  Roisin cringed as she heard the crump of the Tuatha horses colliding with the shield wall. Danny looked at her, his mouth a round O of horror as the horses started to scream. ‘She’s got a plan,’ he said. ‘That’s got to be a good thing, right?’

  ‘If it gets us out of here alive, yeah,’ said Roisin, watching as Niamh prepared to send a second wave of riders into the battle to cut down the Fianna on the ground.

  ‘How confident are we feeling about that, on a scale of one to ten?’ asked Danny.

  Roisin watched as Meabh held her hand up just before Niamh’s warriors charged. ‘Wait!’ Meabh said, watching the mist as it crept alongside them. ‘Where is Finn mac Cumhaill?’

  A second later, she got her answer. Finn mac Cumhaill and the rest of his men came riding out of the mist with swords drawn, their faces grim and silent. Their horses moved like ghosts, their hoofs wrapped in cloth to keep them silent. The Tuatha warriors didn’t have time to turn their horses to face this new threat and Finn mac Cumhaill’s troops charged straight into their sides, hacking and stabbing. Meabh immediately sent a whirlwind of air about her body, driving the Fianna back, while Niamh threw back her cloak and her body pulsed with a solar flare.

  Blinded, Roisin screamed, dropped her reins and clapped her hands over her eyes. Seconds later she felt hands tugging at her and she hit out at the person who was trying to pull her from the saddle.

  ‘Roisin, it’s OK, it’s me!’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘Maddy?’ she asked, just before she was torn from the saddle and flung to the ground, all the breath driven from her body. She climbed stiffly to her feet, blinking frantically, spots dancing in front of her eyes. She could barely see, only dim shapes. A thud and a yelp nearby told her Maddy had managed to get Danny down from the saddle as well.

  Maddy grabbed them both by the arm and began to pull them up the hill toward the mound. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get out of here,’ she panted. ‘Where’s Nero?’

  ‘We had to leave him behind,’ said Danny. ‘They grabbed us so fast I don’t think he could catch us up.’

  ‘Liadan killed Fenris, Maddy,’ said Roisin. ‘We were too late.’

  Maddy clenched her teeth. ‘Then there’s nothing we can do. Just keep moving.’

  She managed to get them both to the entrance of the mound. Their eyes were red and swimming with tears and they kept looking at her ears rather than at her. They still couldn’t see properly. Maybe that was a good thing, thought Maddy. They couldn’t see the Morrighan and the rest of the Tuatha gathering at the foot of hill, by the bend in the river. They couldn’t see the Fianna, fleeing to the boats they had waiting for them downriver, the horsemen galloping into the distance now that their job was done. The mist was creeping up the hill toward them. She had to get them out of here.

  ‘I need you to step into the mound and walk quickly until you reach the mortal side,’ she said. ‘Put your hands on the walls and feel your way along. Apart from the central chamber, it’s a straight run. You can do it. The mist of dreams is going to fill the mound behind you. It makes weird noises but you’ve heard it before so just keep going. Don’t stop, don’t look back, don’t try to turn back.’

  ‘You make it sound like you’re not coming with us,’ said Danny, his voice tense. His hands reached out and gathered up handfuls of her hoody and gripped her hard.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Maddy gently, trying to untangle his fingers. ‘I’m going to stay here and finish this.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that!’ said Roisin. ‘We got Liadan – she’s never going to come after you again.’

  ‘It’s about more than Liadan,’ said Maddy. ‘I realize now, she’s small fry compared to the Tuatha. They are the ones I have to stop. I used to be so scared of Liadan, but now I see she’s just an irritant. The mist will go a long way to locking the mound, but I don’t think it’s enough.’

  ‘You can’t kill them,’ said Danny.

  ‘No, but I can give them a kicking that will leave them licking their wounds for a long time to come,’ said Maddy.

  ‘This isn’t your job,’ said Danny, his face grim. ‘You’re coming back with us.’ He gripped her hard again, and this time Roisin leaned forward and grabbed a handful of her clothing as well.

  But right at that moment the mist began to gather around them as it funnelled into the mound. The split souls chattered and jabbered with excitement and some took shape for a moment, arms and hands snaking out of the mist to prise Danny and Roisin’s fingers off Maddy and to push the siblings ahead of the mist deep into the mound.

  ‘Thank you,’ Maddy said. Hands reached down and patted her face and stroked her hair as the mist flowed over her.

  ‘Maddy …!’ she heard Roisin wail from deep inside the mound. ‘Please come with us before it’s too late. We love you!’

  She sobbed at that and her knees almost buckled as she pressed the back of her hand to her eyes. ‘I love you too, both of you,’ she called into the mound, her voice breaking. ‘Tell Granny and Granda I will miss them and I love them.’

  There was one last, desperate wail from Roisin that faded away, and then the dregs of the mist were sucked into the mound. She w
atched as the mound sealed itself up and she was faced with a grassy bank, solid and innocent as the hill it stood on.

  She tipped her head back to stop the tears from spilling down her face and looked up at the sky. The sun was going down and the clouds were a fluffy baby pink. This world, this mirror image of the mortal one she would never see again, was so beautiful it made her throat ache. This is it, she thought. I will never get to grow up. She thought wistfully of pretty, witty Kitty. I would have liked to have danced like her, in a pretty dress. Just once.

  She braced herself to turn and face the Tuatha when a punch to her shoulder sent her sprawling face down in front of the mound. She winced, and when she opened her eyes a pair of dirty grey feet with black toenails were level with her nose. She looked up at Una. ‘That really hurt,’ she said.

  ‘Well, an arrow in the shoulder will do that to you,’ said Una. ‘Give it ten minutes and it’s really going to hurt.’

  ‘Do you reckon I have ten minutes?’ said Maddy.

  Una looked over Maddy’s head and wrinkled her nose. ‘Probably not.’

  Maddy raised her hand. ‘Here, help me up, will you?’

  She sobbed with pain as Una tried to pull her to her feet as gently as she could and then she turned to face the Morrighan.

  What was left of the Tuatha army was ranged against her at the bottom of the hill, the bend of the river marking their boundary. The last of the Fianna were fleeing back towards the Shadowlands and Maddy was relieved the Tuatha were letting them go. All their attention was focused on her, which was exactly what she wanted. The monarchs looked sullen and angry, all except Nuada, Sorcha’s husband, who had a satisfied smile on his face and a bow in his hand. Maddy guessed he was the one who had shot her. Cernunnos and the Morrighan were unreadable, as usual. The Morrighan’s veil was back over her face.

  ‘I should have put you down when I had the chance,’ she hissed. ‘Hounds are nothing but trouble. Too many Tuatha have died today because of you. And now you think fit to break the treaty. We were given one night a year, and one night we shall have.’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Maddy, swaying on her feet as the pain in her shoulder began to get worse.

  ‘Do you really think that mist will stop us?’ sneered the Morrighan.

  ‘It stopped you from walking through a fair bit of what you called your territory,’ said Maddy. ‘So, yes, I think it will stop you from getting through one doorway. But it’s not like that’s all I’ve got planned for you.’

  ‘Pray tell,’ said the Morrighan.

  ‘I know what the Hounds have always known,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ve figured out how this place works. All these years you’ve been telling people that you are all-powerful, our natural masters, our gods. The truth is, you need us more than we need you. In fact, you’re pretty disposable as far as humans are concerned.’

  The Tuatha began to mutter among themselves, but the Morrighan gave nothing away. ‘You have no idea what you are talking about, child,’ she said.

  ‘I reckon I do,’ said Maddy. ‘Our imaginations make us pretty amazing. Since you were banished beneath the mounds we’ve grown as a species in so many ways. Yet you’ve stayed exactly the same. As a race, you know all you are ever going to know. That’s why you lost the war in the first place, despite your powers – you could never out-think us. Now look at you, stuck underground, needing human imaginations to keep your world going, to keep you fed. And you still can’t control it.

  ‘The truth is, this place is ours,’ Maddy went on. ‘Roisin showed me that. With enough imagination, a human can make this place do pretty much whatever they want. Watch this.’ Maddy waved her hand at the water in the river and it rushed away, leaving a pebbled bed bare beneath the evening sun and a few fish flopping on the stones as they gasped for air.

  ‘Isn’t that amazing?’ said Maddy, smiling with mock innocence as the Tuatha began to panic and mutter among themselves. ‘But you did find our biggest weakness. Us humans, we always have to believe in something bigger than ourselves; we’ve always needed gods for comfort. You exploited that.’

  ‘Archers!’ called the Morrighan. A group of Tuatha ran up behind the monarchs and began to notch silver-tipped arrows into bows. Maddy felt her stomach clench. I have to do it now.

  ‘But if I want to have a god, I can pick whoever I like in here – it doesn’t have to be you lot,’ she said, as the ground began to rumble beneath her feet.

  The Tuatha cried out in panic and looked upstream, where a huge wall of water was bearing down on them as the river rushed to fill its natural place.

  ‘Archers, take aim,’ said the Morrighan.

  ‘Here’s one I quite fancy the look of!’ yelled Maddy over the sound of the tsunami. ‘Poseidon, god of the sea and horses, thunder-roarer, earth-shaker!’

  The Tuatha screamed as the wall of water loomed above them, casting a shadow before it. The foam at its crest writhed and turned into horses, but they didn’t stay white. They turned black, as black as night, and their red eyes burned with rage as the wave began to fall.

  ‘See, Meabh?’ screamed Maddy over the roar of the water as the Autumn Queen looked at her in terror. ‘There’s your hate, there’s your rage! I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON IT!’

  ‘FIRE!’ screamed the Morrighan as the archers loosed their bows. A deadly cloud of arrows arced through the air and then began to fall toward Maddy, singing as they came. She spread her arms wide to welcome them as the wave collapsed and the black horses raced on. Just before it went dark, she thought, Why isn’t Una singing?

  EPILOGUE

  Granda sat by the fire and listened to the rain gust at the window. It was a light and fragile spray, a soft autumn rain that would only mist against the skin. The wind sighed gently around the little cottage, the season too early to give it the strength to howl. George, the little black and white terrier, lay in front of the fire. His muzzle was nearly completely grey now, and when Granda stood up and walked across the room, the little dog merely lifted his sad brown eyes to follow him. He didn’t have the energy to jump up and run after him any more.

  Granda walked quietly to the door of his bedroom and cracked it open slightly. He could hear his wife’s deep, even breathing and see the bottle of pills that sat on her bedside table. Three months on, and she was still taking pills to help her sleep, to stop her from roaming the house or sitting in Maddy’s bedroom, crying.

  He did that for her now.

  Granda closed the door gently. His shoulders slumped and he aged twenty years in two seconds as he opened a door to another bedroom. He sat down on the bed and smoothed the quilt with one gnarled hand and let a tear trickle through the grey stubble on his face.

  Maddy wouldn’t recognize the room now. The heavy dark brown furniture was still there – their pensions couldn’t stretch to getting it replaced – but the shiny embossed wallpaper Maddy had hated so much was gone. The walls were stripped back to the plaster and painted a pale pink and the bed linen he sat on was striped in pink and green. Everything Maddy owned had been unpacked and displayed neatly on shelves. The room was full of her life: her photographs in frames showing her parents and her friends in London, laughing, her books, her worn teddy bear, the trinkets she had taken a shine to. Scatter cushions were propped up against plump pillows and Fionnula had even paid for a leather tub chair and pretty Venetian mirror. It was the perfect girl’s room.

  ‘She’ll like it, won’t she, Bat?’ Granny had asked, twisting a hanky between her hands, tears making tracks on her cheeks as they flowed silently and relentlessly. ‘Isn’t it just what she always wanted?’ It was as if she hoped that the perfect bedroom would be a siren call to the missing child, that Maddy would walk back through the door and lay her head down on the pillow, a smile on her lips.

  Granda wasn’t sure that they had ever really known what Maddy had wanted, but he had told his wife that the room she had worked so hard on was beautiful, that when Maddy came home she would love it. That she would stay this time and
she would be happy, just as her mother once had been. And then he guided his wife out with a hand on her elbow, her fingers still strangling her handkerchief, helped her into their bed and poured her a glass of water for her tablets. He sat and watched while she drifted into sleep, her face still creased by grief.

  He touched his face and wondered what he looked like. He remembered how Danny and Roisin had looked, their eyes red and teary from the solar flare as they had stumbled from the mound, sobbing that Maddy was gone, that the mound was locked, that there was no way to reach her. Although their eyes had healed, the haunted look never left them. Even Fionnula’s face was marked with guilt. What had Maddy’s face looked like, he wondered, as she faced the Tuatha? Had they run her to ground, crouched and sobbing, her back to the mound, or had she stood and faced them? He smiled. He was willing to bet everything he had that his granddaughter had stood straight and proud at the end.

  He got up and closed the door on that perfect room, a room that was cleaned and aired every week, ready for a girl who could not find her way home. As the fire snapped and popped in the grate, Granda took his coat down from a hook by the door, wound a black wool scarf around his neck and pulled a flat cap on to his head. George looked up and wagged his tail half-heartedly as his ears caught the jangle of keys.

  ‘Stay,’ said Granda sternly.

  The dog sighed and dropped his head back down on to his paws.

  Granda stepped out into the autumn night and eased the door shut behind him. He thrust his gloveless hands into the deep pockets of his coat and walked up the road, in the direction of the castle. As the rain blurred his eyes he thought about what could have happened to Maddy.

  Perhaps Danny and Roisin were right. Perhaps Maddy had died on the other side of the mound. They had tried to go back in after her, but the mist of dreams wouldn’t let them pass. The split souls were loyal to the Hound and would not break Maddy’s rule that no one passed through them, not even Maddy’s blood.