The Raven Queen (8 page)

‘Nero!' screamed Roisin as she recognized the lean wolf and ran after him. Maddy and Danny raced after her, making it into the mound just before it shivered itself closed again. Once inside, torches flared to life against walls of smooth packed earth. She could hear the hoof beats of the stag as it ran on, but Nero was flattened against one wall, panting with exhaustion. His eyes gleamed turquoise in the dim light and his coat was matted with mud and tangled with twigs. His
normally glossy silver-grey pelt was dull, and his ribs were showing. Between long yellow teeth, his red tongue flopped out and his eyes stared at them without any sign of recognition.

‘Oh, you poor boy,' said Roisin, stepping toward the wolf with her hand outstretched. Nero peeled back his black lips and growled at her, although the growl was half a whine of fear. Startled, Roisin jumped back and snatched her fingers out of reach.

‘They're more wolfy our side, remember?' said Maddy softly. ‘Let him go on ahead. He'll remember who we are once he gets to Tír na nÓg.'

The wolf stared back at them, terrified, and took a tentative step forward with one of his massive paws. When he saw they were making no move toward him, he bolted through the tunnel and disappeared into the gloom, his plumed tail tucked between his legs.

‘Right,' said Danny. ‘Let's get moving. I don't fancy getting stuck in here. I didn't pack enough Mars bars.'

Maddy squared her shoulders as they walked through the mound, across its domed main chamber and down another small tunnel that would lead them out into Tír na nÓg.

It won't be so bad this time
, she thought.
I'm the Hound of Ireland with the whole might of the Autumn Court behind me, and I've got Danny and Roisin.
And I know what to expect this time when I get to the other side
.

But as they emerged from the mound, she heard Danny and Roisin gasp with shock and horror. As she stared at the scene that greeted her, she realized that she really didn't know what to expect at all.

‘What the hell happened here?' asked Danny. They had expected to step out of the mound into a meadow strewn with wild flowers rolling down a hill before giving way to a forest beneath a crystal-clear sky. Instead, the ground they stood on was scorched to bare earth and the forest had been devastated by fire. The oldest, strongest trees stood charred and blackened, while the younger ones were burned down to the trunks or gone altogether, judging by the clearings that pocked the forest. The sun was rising in the sky but its golden rays struggled to pierce the layer of woodsmoke and no birds sang to welcome it. The cousins were looking at a funeral pyre, the dryads silenced, the animals and birds of the forest fled.

The stag was standing a few feet away, nostrils flaring and collapsing as he breathed deeply. As Maddy watched, he reared up on to his hind legs and transformed into
an antlered man, with a cloak made of a patchwork of animal skins falling away from his shoulders to skim the charcoaled ground. He radiated a dark light that pulsed and shifted like an imploding star, his face wreathed in shadows that even the dawn sun could not penetrate. The moons had disappeared from his eyes – now, when he looked at them, his pupils were full of the white light of wheeling stars.

‘Cernunnos,' said Maddy, ‘who did this?'

One of the oldest of the Tuatha de Dannan and the Lord of the Forest, Cernunnos cocked his massive head at them, a head that should not have been able to support the weight of that huge spread of antlers. ‘War has finally come to Tír na nÓg,' he said. ‘The Winter Queen has struck the first blow.'

‘Liadan,' said Danny. He wrinkled his face in disgust and spat on the ground. ‘I knew it!'

‘Weren't you able to stop this?' asked Roisin. ‘I thought that was the whole point of tying the Winter Queen to you in marriage – so she would not be able to harm the forest. Can't you do anything when your wife goes on the rampage?'

‘War changes the pieces on the board,' said Cernunnos. ‘Changes their positions, changes their values. Yes, I should have stopped her. But I didn't get here quick enough. Now the deed is done and
events have moved on without me. I have another role to fulfil.'

‘We can still stop this,' said Maddy. ‘You've left the mortal world, and now you can help us. Now the courts are moving against each other, there is no point in your staying neutral. You're the oldest of the Tuatha; the only other that compares to you is the Morrighan, the High Queen, and she never wakes up! Stop Liadan in her tracks and this will all go away.'

‘Things have gone too far for that, little Hound,' said Cernunnos. ‘I'm another pawn on the board whose role has changed, and you and I are no longer on the same side. For now I will let you go in peace, but be warned – if we meet again it will not go the same way for you. You've caused a lot of trouble, for just one small girl.' With that, he gathered his cloak around himself and strode off into the devastated forest, heading for the Winter Queen's white tower, hidden from view by the pall of grey smoke.

‘No longer on the same side?' Maddy yelled at his back. ‘What does that even mean?'

A wet nose nuzzled at her hand and Maddy looked down to find herself gazing into Nero's yellow eyes. ‘What is going on around here?' she asked. ‘Are the pack safe?'

‘They went to ground when Liadan got Fenris,' said Nero. ‘I came looking for you. The mound was open – I
think Liadan must have made sure of it. She wanted to lure you in.'

‘What do you mean, she got Fenris?' asked Danny.

‘She summoned him to the tower,' said Nero. ‘Didn't say why. But Fenris knew it couldn't be good – it never is when faeries notice wolves. So he told the pack to hide deep in the forest and to keep the pups safe. But he didn't come out again. Raiding parties of elves came out instead and started to slash and burn at the forest. They killed any dryads that tried to stop them, and none of the Tuatha courts arrived to stand in their way either.'

‘Is Fenris still alive?' asked Roisin. Maddy could hear the tears in her voice. When they had first entered Tír na nÓg, they had stumbled about helpless and lost. It had been the wolf pack and a little dryad called Fionn who had helped them. Now it seemed the wolves were paying for their kindness.

‘I hope so,' said Nero. ‘I hid close to a raiding party and I heard them laughing about him. Liadan has him chained in the great hall of the tower and they say she has pinned his jaws together with a sword so he cannot bite.'

‘That's disgusting!' said Roisin. ‘That's … that's animal cruelty!'

‘They said you would come running when you heard Fenris was in danger,' said Nero.

‘Is that why you risked coming into Blarney?' Maddy asked. ‘To make sure I came?'

Nero shook his shaggy head. ‘No, I wanted you to stay in the mortal world, where you would be safe. Liadan intends to fight to the death this time. Fenris would not have wanted you to die because of him.'

Her heart melted and Maddy touched Nero's head gently with the tips of her fingers. ‘It wouldn't have mattered anyhow, Nero,' she said. ‘Liadan sent the dullahan after me, wanted to make sure that I and the whole of Tír na nÓg knew she is trying to kill me. Now that I am a subject of the Autumn Court, it's an act of war. I was going to end up here whatever you tried to do to stop it.'

‘Come here to me, Nero,' said Roisin. ‘Let me get some of that rubbish out of your fur.'

The wolf padded over to Roisin and the pair of them sank down to the ground together. He put his head in her lap and closed his eyes with a sigh of contentment as Roisin's deft fingers worked clumps of mud and twigs out of his fur.

‘I don't like this,' said Danny.

‘Do I look like I'm turning cartwheels?' asked Maddy.

‘But it's like you said – you were going to end up in here no matter what,' said Danny. ‘Being tied to a Tuatha monarch just seems to make you more vulnerable, not
less. And I don't like feeling shoved into a corner.'

‘Ah, but you know what they say about cornered animals,' said Maddy. ‘They always fight hardest.'

‘That's because they're desperate, Maddy,' said Danny. ‘I don't think that's a good thing.'

‘Well, it sounds like the two of you are on track for one of your usual mature, reasonable discussions,' said Roisin cheerfully. ‘Or as I like to call them, arguments.' She stood up and Nero climbed to his feet, shaking himself briskly. ‘Why don't we just keep moving and see what happens?'

‘Why?' asked Danny.

‘Because that's what we've always done before and it's never failed to get us into a fight,' said Roisin. ‘So I say we head for where all the problems start – Liadan's White Tower.'

Roisin walked away down the hill with Nero trotting by her side. Maddy and Danny looked at each other and Maddy shrugged. ‘She's right. Might as well go and spy on Liadan and see what she's up to.'

‘It would be nice if, just once, we could have something like a plan,' said Danny.

‘Never gonna happen,' said Maddy cheerfully, as she followed Roisin down the hill.

Any cheerfulness Maddy might have felt, no matter how fleeting, was soon crushed by walking in the stricken forest. She had never been anywhere so quiet. Every living thing had fled or died – not even the buzz of insect wings disturbed the silence. She was almost terrified to walk, cringing at the sounds charred wood made as it collapsed beneath the soles of her trainers, and she hated the puffs of ash that floated up as they walked. She could tell by the way Danny and Roisin were wincing that they felt the same way. They could not even see the sky. Everything was covered by a cloud of acrid smoke that hung low enough to drift around her head in tendrils. Spots of soot danced in the air and quickly coated her skin and clothes, while the smoke slipped insidiously into her nostrils and her mouth, drying her eyeballs and making every flickering movement of her eyes feel scratchy. It was not long before all three of them were coughing, their eyes red and streaming. Nero kept pausing to wipe at his face with his foreleg, trying to clear his eyes.

Everything was fragile to the touch. At one point Maddy stumbled and put her hand against a huge oak tree to brace herself. That simple touch caused a chunk of its bark to slough off beneath her fingers and crumble to ash. She looked up at it in horror. Was its dryad, the little faerie that lived in the heart of the tree, still
alive, curled up somewhere inside, suffering agonizing burns? Could it speak? Could it still feel anything, even the wound Maddy had just inflicted, or had pain sent its mind to another place? The tree loomed over her, twisted and tortured, and gave no sign it even knew she was there. She dashed tears from her red eyes and kept moving.

After a while they all stopped walking and simply stood and stared at each other.

Roisin took a juddering breath. ‘I've never been anywhere so … so …'

‘Dead,' said Danny. Nero flopped on to his belly, put his head on his paws and whimpered.

‘I did this,' said Maddy, real tears coursing through the grime on her face. She wiped her cheeks with a filthy hand and simply spread more soot around.

Roisin looked at her, her eyes softening with pity. ‘No, you didn't.'

‘Liadan wanted me to come back,' said Maddy. ‘She's torturing Fenris and she burned the forest to make sure that happened. So yes, I did this, it's my fault. How many dryads are dead because of me?'

‘She's done this before, Maddy, when she first came to Tír na nÓg, remember?' said Danny. ‘This is what she revels in, the death and the destruction. You are just an excuse for something she would do sooner or later.'

‘Danny's right,' said Roisin. ‘What she really wants is a war with the Tuatha, a way to break out from Tír na nÓg and have no restraint on her powers. Having a go at you is just a way to make that happen.'

‘She burnt the forest because it's too close to the tower,' said Nero.

‘What?' asked Maddy.

Nero shrugged. ‘She's always been frightened of the dryads, though I don't think they ever understood that. So many of them, some working with such powerful trees, all of them solitary faeries owing allegiance to no court. They could have thrown their lot in with any Tuatha and come against her. She didn't want that to happen so she burned them. They will be too weak to do anything to her now.'

‘So this was just Liadan housekeeping before she started her war,' said Roisin.

‘But Fachtna spoke about the dryads like they were dirt,' said Maddy. ‘To listen to her, you would have thought she was talking about something she scraped off the bottom of her boots.'

‘People often show hatred of something they are frightened of, rather than admit they are scared,' said Nero.

‘The dryads could have fought back, they could have done her some damage,' said Danny. ‘Why didn't they?'