A Lament of Moonlight (11 page)

No one, however, caused as much carnage as the well trained mannikin archers. Each arrow they let loose found purchase in the breast of a bird. It was nearly alien to watch how they were able to target and kill with acute accuracy any bird they set their sights on whether it was an easy shot or nearly impossible the mannikins managed it.

But still the birds came, flocking in by the hundreds and it seemed that all the birds they thought dead from the arrows of the melee before either came back to life or more had been conjured, for there were several more than Melvin had before thought possible even with the mass that had plagued them until the end of Singers Trail.

And then the air was no longer clear, but instead filled with a multitude of
snowflakes
blowing in from every
direction. Gretchen
had loosed the maelstrom of winter she had gathered around her. The birds were no longer easy to see and often they would come winging out of the white blindness before them to scratch, bite or somehow land a blow on them that either left them wounded, confused or often both. A few times Abigail was able to skewer one or more bird, but the draw back was having to spend a long time picking the dying animal off the end of her fire poker.

All the while she fumbled with birds that seemed able to find them in the blinding winter after having scented them out. Somehow Abigail must have gotten turned around for as she stumbled through the darkness she could hear less and less the sounds of battle. At first she thought that it was because the snow was thicker that the noise was more muffled and her visibility lessened, but eventually she realized with heart pounding fear that she had gotten away from the main party.

She had little time to think of the fear of being lost, for before she could dwell too much on it another fear came looming out of the darkness before her, treading on the snow as if it were nothing more than earth. She was surrounded with a light, the same dark light as before that Abigail could both see and not see. It obscured the form of her once cousin, but she found that if she looked away and gazed at Gretchen peripherally that she was able to see her among the dancing, writhing shadows that was her power.

Abigail was terrified as she clung to the fire poker in her hand.

“Where are you going?” The imposter asked, and it was different now, more disturbing as if three different voices all spoke from her at once, and there was a glowing, cold light coming from the frozen surfaces of her eyes causing shadows to dance along the ground. The light in her eyes and the malevolence of her voice seemed to come from the same place, and Abigail was sure that was a place where evil lived, where hatred was fostered and where sin was created.

“We are going to stop the winter from coming to the lands out of turn,” Abigail said grunting with the effort to stand in the snow that constantly
threatened
to overwhelm her. Gretchen sneered, and Abigail was struck soundly in the head with something, which left a gash along her cheek and scarred the surface of the snow with her blood.

“I applaud you,” Gretchen said in her tri-voice, the words coming from her held a vocabulary that was far beyond the years the human child should have been. “I am as old as the oak in the forest, and never before have I encountered such bravado!”

Again something struck Abigail in the cheek, sending more blood onto the ground, and she heard the wolves howling closer, almost as though they could smell her blood loss, smell a wounded near defenseless girl. Abigail was not having any of that and swung the poker out at Gretchen. Obviously the changeling was not expecting retaliation for the fire poker struck her square in the leg, but she didn’t bleed, at least not a bloo
d Abigail was used to. A
blue liquid like some kind of gel flowed from the wound to pool in the snow, freezing almost instantly.

A howl of rage tore out of Gretchen, and the storm answered her. A wind stronger than anything Abigail had ever encountered battered at her and threw her back several yards. A cloud of snow followed her burying her effectively under several feet.

When she came to and realized what had happened she was instantly panicked, what if she was trapped here? She fought and struggled her way out, and when she finally came to fresh air Abigail saw that the rage conjured storm had created a patch of bare earth where there was no snow, almost as if Gretchen had created for them a miniature battlefield.

Abigail was not the type to back away from a challenge, and to her mind came swimming all the thoughts and memories of Gretchen abusing her and her siblings. She remembered all the times others were forced to do as Gretchen wished for fear of how she would react. The oppression that Abigail felt before this fiend would end tonight.

She stepped out onto the frozen earth and the challenge was accepted. A sneer of scorn came to Gretchen’s mouth.

“You will lose,” she told Abigail.

“Not this time,” Abigail said daringly, though she was not ready for the chaos Gretchen was about to release. If it hadn’t been for the gossamer cloak the mannikins had given her Abigail was sure she would have been frozen at once by the incredible wind that tore at her, sending her dark hair flying in all directions and tugging at her clothes. She held her hands up before her, shielding herself from the wind, and plunged forward, the fire poker held awkwardly in her grip.

She wasn’t sure where Gretchen
was, but she swung out and managed to connect with something, though when she uncovered her eyes Abigail found that the wolves had circled them and she had struck one. It snapped at her, and Abigail fell back into the freezing wind Gretchen was sending to her. The wolves stood there, almost like a guard not wanting to attack but at the same time eager to feed. Abigail realized at once that Gretchen was holding them at bay, waiting for Abigail to fail before letting the wolves feed. Gretchen didn’t care what happened to Abigail once she was dead, but the changeling wanted to be the one to kill.

Abigail surged forward once more into the wind, and though it was a brave effort she didn’t make it far with that burst of energy and had to keep throwing herself toward the blue and silver form of the changeling. Finally she was there, and Gretchen screamed at her, another forceful blast of wind issuing from the gapping maw before Abigail. It was strange how widely Gretchen’s mouth spread open, and for a moment all Abigail could do was stare for she didn’t think it was possible for a mouth to grow so large.

In anger Abigail struck out and the heavy iron of the fire poker smashed into one of the branches on Gretchen’s head, breaking it clean off in a shower of frost and ice. Gretchen screamed in pain, and where the limb once was more of the blue gel type blood poured out. Gretchen reached for the gel and held it in her hands. She screamed again for now that the changeling held the blood in her hands it made the injury all the more real.

Then the most curious thing happened. The blood actually reformed itself from a puddle in Gretchen’s hand to a long spear, like a wicked ice sickle. She swung out with it and smashed it into the side of Abigail’s head, and sent the dark haired Bordeaux daughter flying back.

That might not have been the smartest move for Gretchen for the blow had knocked something loose. The willow wand Grandmother Fire had given Abigail tumbled out of her sleeve and onto the ground beside her.

The wolves circled closer and closer to her as if w
aiting for their queue to feed.

The wand was in her grasp, and warmth was infusing her hand, entering her palm and spreading with clarity through her.

Gretchen
flung out her hand and knocked Abigail through the air once more, and she nearly lost hold o
f the wand, but not completely.

In an instant Gretchen had advanced on her and swung the ice spear again, slashing deep into Abigail’s arm, and the blood flowed freely. The wound felt like cold fire to her arm.

She didn’t want
to die, and with that one thought
the fire came back, filling her with more than mere warmth and instead with a more true essence of fire: destructive fury.

Abigail, face flushed red with anger. She raised the willow wand and screamed with the fiery pulsing through her.

The fire sprang out of the willow wand, blasting Abigail back slightly, but she stood firm, the point of the fire poker buried in the ground behind her, helping to keep her resolute, helping Abigail to stand her ground. Her other arm was out straight and from the crooked wand sprang a stream of fire straight at Gretchen. It sparked in the cold night, illuminating the clearing in which they stood, and the bowl of snow that Gretchen’s wind had created.

Gretchen stumbled back, her hands ineffectively going to her face, trying to shield her from the fire. Instantly Gretchen caught fire as if it was not ice that clung to her but instead some gaseous matter. The flames tore up through her faster than wildfire through dry grass. Her silver hair twisted and tangled into a mass of blackness, melting in the intense heat of the flames which tore at her icy face. The branch on her head caught the flames, refracted them in rainbow purity before it shattered and scattered the clearing with shards of its once pure glory.

Eventually Gretchen’s screams melted into darkness as the tattered form of who she once was crumpled to the ground in a heap of burning, noxious fluid as putrid as the soul of the shadkin had been.

And from above her on the rim of snow the wolves circled and let out a howl, a howl of a predator having found its prey. Abigail realized her folly then, for with the death of Gretchen so went the temporary reprieve from the wolves.

Chapter Eleven

Meanwhile Melvin had gotten separated from the group as well.

It was in the confusion of a heated battle, much like it was for Abigail. He was fighting among the throngs of mannikins, birds, and now wolves had joined the fray. Blood was seemingly everywhere, raining down from the blackened sky from wounded birds, pouring out of wolves wounded variously from arrows and little swords that the mannikins were now proffering with equal ease and effectiveness as the bows they clung to.

Not all the blood was from the shadkin, however. Even now Ruby was being sequestered in a circle of protective Mannikins after having been nearly brutalized by the appearance of the wolves, and what was worse they had no idea where Abigail was. Everywhere he plunged there was more and more shadkin, and he swung and struck, killed and wounded with a type of detachedness that made him nearly mindless with the killing.

Before long Melvin realized that he had killed all the shadkin before him, but when he turned there was nothing behind him. He was reminded of the horrible vision they had of the half dead woman and how he had been carried seemingly miles in a short time and wondered if maybe that time leap had happened again. That wasn’t right, however, for he could still hear the sounds of battle faintly behind him, and there was a noise scurrying after him.

He raised his hammer to strike at the shadkin when he realized that it was a very cold, snow covered Mama Coon. She sat back on her heels and watched him, her paws curled up to her mouth as if eating something again. Her ears flicked playfully when he lowered his arm. Melvin sighed and closed his eyes, content that he was not going to meet his death and that it was instead just Mama Coon.

She twitched her nose a couple times and darted off ahead of him.

“Hey!” Melvin called after her, but the sound of his voice was nullified by the
all-consuming
winter. He plunged on slightly reminded of what had started this trip: that same word yelled at a butterfly, and their lives would never again be the same.

She led him through the snow for so long that Melvin was about to leave her. Already the sounds of life behind him were dwindling away and his senses were being suffused with silence, a void of space and time that confused him with utter whiteness.

Then out of the snow before him he heard music. The music was familiar, and this time he tried not to let himself get drawn in by it, but it was like a spell which befuddled his mind and Melvin was not able to fight it, no matter how he recalled the horrible image of the elle folk he was not able to ward off the music. He tried everything, Melvin prayed and struggled, he called out holy names and cursed but nothing would work, still his feet went on against his better judgment.

Then out of the snow there loomed one lone tree. The tree was as he had seen before, a lime tree that appeared massive compared to the tiny people below it. Snow did not touch the tree and neither did snow gather below the tree. In fact the tree was in perfect health given the desolation of the
wintery weather
. Melvin stared in wonder at the lush green in contrast to the blinding white snow. Once again Melvin was aware that he was most likely looking in on a world that was both part of and not part of his own. Below the tree stood the harp player in all her dark beauty, but Melvin knew better now, and as if his knowing was clear to her she smiled at him, her broken teeth gleaming in the night like shards of glass.

She
once more conjured the purple black glowing energy that pulsed like another heartbeat in the recesses of her horrifying back. But that was not the only place darkness gathered, for again it amassed above her as well, looming up and expanding as if with breath.

The music of the harp seemed to conjure the old man, and soon the elle folk king with his garments of flesh and his macabre top hat formed out of the darkness above the harp player and fell to the earth, catching his wicked walking stick as that was ejected from the pool of blackness as well.

This time the blackness did not fade, but instead gathered around the ground like black fog, and it crept toward Melvin. The elle folk king and the harp player leered at him, and the king spread his arms wide, and the shadows obeyed him. Melvin was held against every screaming nerve in his body by the music of the harp player.

Then from out of the shadows of the other world bounded Mama Coon, her claws livid and her mouth hissing in rage. Melvin knew just how much harm a raccoon could cause to a human and he was pretty sure that same harm could be lethal to one the size of the harp player, for it was her that Mama Coon leapt upon.

They struggled for a time, the harp player trying with all her might to loose Mama Coon from her hair, but not succeeding only in receiving large angry cuts and bites from the raccoon. They spun in circles and as the music drifted away from him Melvin was able to move again. But Mama Coon was not done, for her animal hands, so close to that of a human tightened around the harp and dashed it against the tree, snapping the cords and cracking the wood so completely that he didn’t think even magic could save it.

The harp player was on the animal then, struggling to stab her with a knife that had been pulled from the darkness of her back. The raccoon was nearly the same size as the tiny people, so they were just about equal, and as Mama Coon kicked and bucked it had about the same affect on the elle folk as a Great Dane would have on a human child.

But the harp player was about to win, and Melvin could not let that happen. Sick as it made him he dashed through the shadowy fogbank and lifted the hammer high. As the knife was about to come down into Mama Coon Melvin swung with all his might and his hammer plunged through the darkness in her back which lapped around the hammer like water before he heard the harsh cracking of bone that made him realize he had effectively snapped the harp players back clean in two.

In fact he had smashed the hammer so hard into her that he had nearly plunged it clean through her center, and while he was struggling to get it free the elle folk king struck.

Darkness so absolute that it blinded Melvin surrounded him. He was plunged into the darkness, and in the darkness there were whispers, whispers of the haunted dead come to life. He struggled away from the perversion in which he found himself, but there was something holding him back, something that would not let him free.

Melvin was cold, and without form. The coldness he felt was one of the mind as his senses, his thoughts began to slow, began to freeze where they were. He was trying to get out of the darkness, but something in his hand would not let him struggle out.

With the whispers of the darkness came pinpricks, and he knew that each one brought blood to the surface of his flesh. Pinpricks, pinching like mosquitoes come to feed on his blood surrounded him in the dark, and with it came a buzzing as if from the same bug his skin was plagued with.

He screamed and flung his hand in the air trying to ward off the insects feasting on him, feasting on his life. He stumbled away to free himself of them but his hand would not let loose of the heaviness that bound him to the spot. Melvin looked down to where he was fastened to the ground and saw that the darkness was not only coming from around him but also creeping up his arm like a slithering presence, like snakes threatening to entangle him and squeeze out his life.

He yanked hard to get away from that darkness, the darkness that he knew would infuse him and make him other than the human he was. Melvin was not sure how he knew this, but there was clarity to the musing that said he was, without a doubt, right in his assumptions.

Melvin yanked hard and stumbled back out of the cloud of blackness, and back into the world of winter. The elle folk king snickered a mere curving of cracked lips below the rim of his flesh hat.

And then the darkness was over the fogbank in a moment and coming for him like breath blown from the king. In fact it was his breath and Melvin didn’t realize it at first because last time it had been green instead of black. The darkness was gaining on him, and he had to figure a way to kill the king before it reached him, for Melvin was sure that would be the only way in which he could get around the darkness and to that otherworld under the lime tree for he knew that was where he had to be.

He dodged this way and that but each time he moved the darkness followed him, and there was no escape for it was coming straight at him and Melvin could not get around it try as he might. Then a thought struck him, a thought that was so risky he was not sure he wanted to take the chance, but there was no choice. Either strike or die, that was the choice for he knew that if he didn’t stop the source of this darkness he would not be able to outrun it, for the poisonous cloud would follow him until it lived only within his lungs.

He raised the hammer to his mouth and rubbed a hand gently over the head of it and whispered to the iron “fly true,” and with nothing more than that he hurled the hammer end over end straight at the elle folk king.

He didn’t see the hammer connect, but through the night he could hear a sickening thud and crunch as it found its mark. Instantly the dark cloud faded into night shadows and flocked away before Melvin like a stubborn miasma finally clearing from the eyes
as the lime tree grove fell in upon itself. He wasn’t sure if killing the king destroyed the grove but as h
e peered through the night a
nd looked for the lime tree he
could no longer see it, only a dead husk of a tree that was
nowhere
near the size or splendor of the lime tree.

The only sign there was of the elle folk king was a splattering of blood and the hammer sunken some way into the ground where he once stood. Melvin went to gather the hammer and out of the night behind him came a purple glimmer on the air. He recognized it at once as Luna and he was delighted to see her, for that meant she was going
to lead him back to the group.

She wasn’t sure how she had gotten out of the bowl of snow without the wolves getting her. There was a memory of swinging the fire poker wildly and littering the winter ground with blood and gore, and then a memory of running in blind terror. Abigail remembered stumbling several times, just barely catching herself before the wolves were on her, and still she plunged on, the blood and pulse thundering in her ears deafening her to the howls of the wolves which pursued her, intent on her flesh, intent on removing her from the world.

Finally she crumpled tired beyond belief, and the wolves were soon on her, plunging their faces down to kill her, to feed on her. There was a yip and a thrashing behind her and when Abigail raised her head it was to see an arrow flying out of the snowy blindness before her to find purchase in the eye socket of another wolf about to end her suffering.

She swung out the fire poker and a wolf darted to the side, and Abigail stood. There was no getting away for her, however, for the wolves were now circling her, howling and baying their delight. They sneered and snarled and watched her intently, but before they could leap a volley of arrows plummeted out of the sky and Abigail found herself once more cowering on the ground, her hands over her head for fear that the arrows would find purchase in her flesh.

When she looked up several minutes later (minutes that could have been hours for all she knew) she saw the ground tinged pink and scarlet with what appeared to be gallons of blood, and the wolves lay in a dead circle about her. From out of the stark whiteness there came a troop of mannikins, and they helped her to stand.

“Come, there isn’t much time, and if you
want to get to the Eget Row
before daylight comes you had best head out while we hold off the amassing armies here.” She didn’t recognize the female mannikin who spoke to her, but Abigail accepted her help none-the-less and followed her back to the main battle.

There wasn’t time to be laconic, however, for soon the bloodlust of battle was throbbing through her veins again and Abigail found herself plunged into killing once more. It was strange how she had no problem killing the birds and wolves but she had had a problem with destroying the changeling.

But she killed with startling clarity, her fire poker lashed out and took lives seemingly wherever she reached, and soon she was joined by Melvin who seemed to have been previously in a battle similar to her own. He looked different, changed somehow, older perhaps, as if what he had just done, where he had come from was years away and he had grown in that time, aged.

They shared an ironic smile, for apparently he was able to see the same thing in her eyes. Together they fought and the shadkin fell back. Eventually, with the help of the mannikins, the ebb of the shadkin fell away and they were left on the barren land short of breath and tired. They wanted to sleep but knew they couldn’t for their journey was not yet done, their tasks not yet completed.

“We need to hurry, for more are coming,” Nel told them. “Not just wolves and birds, but the shadkin of
Cailleach Bheur
herself, the spiders!”

Abigail and
Melvin
hated spiders
.

“Some of us will wait, but the majority of us travel on with you. It isn’t far now, for the spiders don’t venture far from her and they are now close to us.” Nel motioned for them and a team of Mannikins fell in beside them as if this venture had been planned out beforehand.