Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six) (23 page)

I doubted he would ride in from the north, where there was a golf course now. We scanned the landscape around us until Granuaile spotted something moving to the south, and she chucked my right shoulder to point behind me. “Over there, I think.” Even with night vision, it was difficult to see. She was pointing at something that had detached itself from the shadow of a veteran oak tree even more ancient than the one marked as Herne’s. Behind it, several other somethings moved. The figures brightened as they got closer—that is to say, they took on a minimal albedo, reflecting moonlight and providing faint outlines. There were three men on horses and hounds walking alongside. The figure in the center had a large rack of antlers floating over his head, but his features were largely occluded by a hooded cloak. Part of me wondered how he’d managed to pull a hood over those antlers and added that there was no good reason for a ghost to wear a cloak or anything at all, but another part reasoned that one of the few perks
to being an unhoused spirit must be the ability to wear impractical clothing for effect.

The riders became clearer as they approached, but it wasn’t merely a function of shrinking distance; they were becoming brighter, flaring into luminosity as the spirits manifested fully. The horses and hounds were supposed to be black, according to legend, but in the light of the moon and their own ghostly glow—perhaps aided by a certain transparency—they took on more of a midnight-blue color.

Herne rode in leathers of the hunt. His eyes, visible under his hood once he drew near, lacked pupils; they were holes made of lambent cobalt.

The bottom half of his face billowed with a dark thicket of a beard. Trimming it would require pruning shears.

The antlers were quite imposing up close, and taken together with his face and disturbing eyes, they suggested what Bambi’s dad would look like if he ever decided to kick the ass of anyone who dared to be stupid in his forest.

His companions lacked headgear, but their eyes and beards were of a kind with Herne’s. Evidently, men’s grooming products had yet to penetrate the spectral market.

Herne looked first at me, then at Granuaile. “Wich is the Druyd?”

I blinked and was slow to reply. I’d been kind of expecting to hear something raspy and whispery out of his throat, or something choked with phlegm, the way ghosts always seem to sound when they vocalize in popular entertainment, but Herne spoke in a perfectly clear baritone—in Middle English. If he used short, simple sentences, he could probably make himself understood to a speaker of Modern English, but longer sentences would be difficult for contemporary speakers to decode,
since half the vowels would be pronounced differently. Amongst the tales of him that purported to be historical, this fact suggested that he was much more likely to have been a subject of Richard II than of Henry VIII.

“Did he ask which was the Druid? We’re both Druids,” Granuaile said.

Herne’s brow furrowed at first, perhaps trying to process Granuaile’s modern pronunciation, but then it smoothed out and his mouth quirked up on the left side.

“Bothe of yow?”

“Is he okay?” Granuaile asked.

“Yes. It’s Middle English,” I said.

I ignored Oberon’s question and addressed Herne. “Aye, bothe.”

“An Druides be, thanne answere me: Whos love in Eire is moste fyn and fre?”

“Did he just rhyme on purpose?” Granuaile whispered.

I replied in kind, though Herne could easily hear us. “Yes. It’s a riddle in verse. If I can’t answer in the same fashion, then I’m not the old Druid I claim to be and I’m trespassing here. Even though Albion’s obviously told him I’m a Druid, it’s a sort of challenge.”

“Do you know the answer?”

Oberon had a point (Why are we here? Bacon), but that wasn’t the kind of answer Herne needed. He wanted to hear the name of an old hunting partner with a legendary libido, so I said, “Whether in bedde or in feeld do ye meet, Flidais awaiteth your limbes to greet.”

At this, laughter erupted from the ghosts to the point where one of the hunters started coughing uncontrollably, which I thought completely bizarre since he no longer had a pulmonary system.

“Wait,” Granuaile said. “Flidais isn’t funny. I missed the joke. Why was that funny?” The easy grins of the hunters faded, replaced with a look of discomfort.

“If I explain it to you, then it won’t be.”

Granuaile noticed that the hunters now looked a bit embarrassed. “Do it anyway.”

“In Middle English, when referring to a man, a limb was a euphemism for a penis, and the verb
gretan
didn’t simply mean
hello
—it had a rather strong connotation of a sexual embrace. So I’m sorry to say I was being a bit crude.”

“Ooooohhh.”

“Perhaps more than a bit.”

Granuaile’s mouth tightened in prim disapproval, and she turned narrowed eyes on the hunters. One began to inspect his boots, and the other found something fascinating up in the sky. Herne abruptly decided that now would be a good time to pet his horse. They might speak Middle English, but it appeared they could follow Modern well enough, and Granuaile’s body language needed no translation. “I know all you boys are old school,” she said, waving her finger around to include me while looking at the hunters, “but let’s try to remember what century this is, shall we? Any ass you can kick, I can kick better, and so can Flidais.”

“Aye!” Herne barked, and glared at his men as if they had been the only ones laughing. Then he turned to us, smiled, and said, “Honored Druids, you are welcome to my forest.” His old diction sloughed away. “I have learned to speak Modern English over the years, so be at ease. You are my guests. Hunt or rest as it pleases you.”

Once he called us his guests, I finally understood what the Morrigan intended. Herne would take little to no convincing to join our side. His honor—his
raison d’être
—demanded that he protect both his forest and his guests.

“Is my hound a guest as well? He likes to hunt with us.”

“Aye, he is.”

I thanked him and said, “It is more likely that we will be hunted than have time to hunt anything else.”

Herne’s friendly smile disappeared. “Hunted? By whom?”

“Olympians. At least one is plaguing Albion even now—either Pan or Faunus.”

“The goat-footed god? He has passed through here recently.”

“And because of that we cannot shift to Tír na nÓg. He spreads pandemonium and upsets the order of Gaia, distresses the forest. He keeps us here so that Artemis and Diana can slay us.”

Herne scowled, and the cobalt eyes flared brighter for a moment. He dismounted and squatted, pressing the fingers of one hand into the earth. I noted that this process made no noise whatsoever—no creak of leather, no thump of foot on the forest floor. He and his companions made noise only when they wished to. After a few seconds of contemplation, Herne said, “It’s true. It’s not visible, but it can be felt. The goat disturbs my forest.” He looked up at me. “And they come to hunt my guests?”

“Aye. And it is not only your forest they disturb but all forests in Albion.”

“It shall not stand,” Herne vowed, rising. “My guests are few, and none have dared trespass on my goodwill for some time. No one attempts to hunt my forest anymore.”

That was more likely due to protections laid down by the Crown Estate than anything else, but if Herne wished to believe it was due to his badassery, I wouldn’t disabuse him of the notion.

“If any attempt it now, they shall feel my wrath. Rest now and recover your strength. Should Olympians appear to despoil my forest, day or night, we will ride.”

“My thanks. Um … forgive my ignorance, but do you have power to wound the corporeal?”

Herne stared at me in silence for a time, unable to believe I’d asked him, but then withdrew a knife from a sheath at his belt. It was barely visible, and its outlines were suggested only by reflected light. Stepping forward slowly, he raised it casually and pressed the point into my chest just enough to draw blood.

“Do you feel its bite?” he growled.

“Yes. Fair enough. I am answered.”

He nodded—a rather dangerous gesture when one is sporting antlers—and returned the knife to its sheath. I triggered my healing charm to close up the small wound.

One of Herne’s hunters spoke up suddenly, his voice surprisingly high and nasal and amused. “Ha! What means your hound to sniff thus?” he said. Herne and I turned our heads to discover Oberon with his nose snuffling at the rear end of a bewildered ghost hound.

I sighed. “Oberon, you’re embarrassing me.”

Oberon grunted. He raised his snout and swung his head around to look at me.

Together we left the Home Park and ran southwest to the proper Windsor Forest, which was only a mile or two long these days. On the northeastern side of it there was an amusement park, which struck me as an odd juxtaposition. To a Druid, the forest was the amusement park.

Herne left us near the edge of a field in the middle of it, far from prying eyes, and told us he and his hunters would leave us for now.

“Again, you are welcome. Call my name if you need me,” he said. “Otherwise, rest or prepare yourselves as you will.”

We thanked him, and he faded out of sight as slowly as he had originally appeared. As soon as they were gone, Oberon flopped onto his back and said,

Granuaile laughed and knelt next to him to oblige. I smiled and took a look around. This wood was a comfortable place. Not sensual comfort of any kind—merely a quiet spot where we could repair and nurture those parts within us that had been damaged or neglected during the run. I approached an old beech tree twined with ivy, plucked a couple of strands, and plonked myself
down on the ground next to Granuaile and Oberon. My hound twisted his head to see what I had in my hands.

“Arts and crafts,” I replied.

“I guess so.”

He rolled over and pulled himself closer to me without getting up. Using my lap as a pillow for his giant head, he stretched himself out on his side and sighed in contentment.

Granuaile shook her head. “You slept all day.”

She smiled, got to her feet, and then addressed me. “What are we going to do now?”

“Relax while we can. There are a few hours before dawn.”

“Shouldn’t we be preparing to meet two very pissed-off huntresses? Building booby traps or something like that?”

“Probably. But there is some time to be creative—or at least some time that I can steal—and so I’m going to take it. Ever notice how you never have time to do something until you decide that you do?” Granuaile peered at the twisted strands of ivy in my hands and looked doubtful that they could serve as anything beyond compost. “Come on. Sit back down for a sec.” I patted the ground next to me, on the side where Oberon wasn’t stretched out. She sighed and sat in the indicated spot, resting her staff on the ground. I smiled at her. “There. Isn’t this nice?”

She looked at the canopy above, with the moon peeking through the leaves, and listened to the soft whisper of the night from grasses in the nearby field. “I can’t argue the point. It’s lovely.”

“Gaia has left us wonder wherever we go, if we only open our eyes to it.”

“Oh, I agree.”

“Now, I know I am not much of a craftsman,” I said, busily knotting the vines into a circle, “but greatness is in the act of creation and not necessarily in the finished product. Creating is the yin to the yang of our consumption and the doorway to beauty that we all want to walk through. Creating is how I tell the world I love it.” I handed the completed wreath to Granuaile, and she smiled as she took it.

“You’re very sneaky, you know.”

“Am I?”

She placed the ivy wreath on her head. “I thought you were being philosophical, and then you pivoted to mushy.”

“I have +20 verbal dexterity.”

Granuaile leaned in for a kiss, but Oberon interrupted.

We were saved from both yak and further mush by the arrival of Flidais, who called to us from the small field and revealed herself when our eyes followed her voice.

“Well met, Druids.” Her tone mocked us gently. “Is it safe to approach?” She stood in her chariot, nearly identical to that of the Olympians in that it was pulled by stags. It wasn’t a flashy design, more utilitarian than anything else. I’m not sure how she had muffled the noise of her movement; we should have heard her coming. Or perhaps I’d been simply too absorbed in Granuaile.

I beckoned her over and we all rose from the ground to meet her, Oberon grumbling about naps he’d never get back. I cautioned him to keep his thoughts to himself, since Flidais could hear him if she wished. She was dressed for battle—that is, she had her standard hunting leathers and bow and quiver, but she also wore two long
daggers for close work. One I had seen before but had thought it was purely ceremonial, for appearances at the Fae Court. Its handle was made of malachite and mother-of-pearl. Her hair bounced on her head in curly red ringlets and she appeared to be in a good mood, which put me on my guard. Though I currently thought Midhir was behind all this, Flidais had shown herself in the past to be a willing pawn of Brighid’s. I doubted she was truly our adversary, but neither did I trust her.

“How did you get here, if you don’t mind my asking?” I said as she approached. “The tethers are all shut down by pandemonium.”

The huntress shrugged. “I used an Old Way.”

I blinked. “It wasn’t guarded?”

“No. Why would it be?”

“Because they’re all guarded or destroyed. All across Europe.”