The Unicorn Hunter (5 page)

For a second time there was a perfect silence. Maddy opened her eyes and saw another Tuatha standing where the whirlwind had raged only a moment before. Her hair was as red as fire, thick and matted, and so long it reached to the ground behind her. Her huge eyes were a bright, bright green and she had draped her body in red plaid over a white undershirt, pinned at the shoulder with a golden brooch. Gold armbands gleamed against her
milk-white skin and a torc hung heavy around her long neck. A huge shaggy black dog pressed itself against her thigh, its yellow eyes like lamps in the dim light. Three hideous women in greasy grey rags huddled behind her, their scabbed scalps pocked with limp strands of hair, each with one eye gleaming with malevolence in her blue-black face.

‘Meabh,' said Niamh, her eyes blazing with hatred. ‘So good of you to join us. And you must be feeling brave to bring only your storm hags and the Pooka.'

‘I did not realize I had anything to fear,' said Meabh with mock innocence. She gazed around her at the assembled courts while the Pooka, a faerie that took the shape of a giant dog, bared his teeth at Niamh. ‘I thought I was coming to council, not war. Am I not safe here?'

Seamus stepped forward and offered his arm. ‘Of course, dear sister. We are under a banner of truce – no blood can be spilled. And your skills of witchcraft are much needed.'

‘Let me guess,' whispered Maddy. ‘The Queen of Autumn?'

‘The very same,' said Granda.

‘Where's the king?' asked Danny.

‘Meabh's husbands have a nasty habit of dying in battle,' said Granda. ‘She has been widowed for the
second time since taking the Autumn crown and there are not many volunteers to be her third husband.'

Seamus walked Meabh over to the body of the unicorn mare, with her mate still standing forlorn by her side. The Autumn Queen bowed her head to the stallion, who lowered his in return. Then she crouched and drew the dart from the mare's shoulder. The unicorn did not move as the barb was pulled free of her skin; not so much as a ripple shuddered through her silver hide. Meabh pressed her hand to the wound and closed her eyes. She stayed still and silent for a while, the Sighted and the faerie courts pressing closer and watching her face.

‘What is she doing?' asked Roisin.

‘Meabh is a necromancer,' said Granda. ‘As well as having power over the elements, like all the Tuatha, she can walk in the realm of the dead and talk to them there. The unicorn is hovering on the brink of death and Meabh is the only one who can travel to her.'

‘So why is she touching the cut?'

‘She is looking for the poison,' said Granda. ‘Poisons are a bit like bombs – the people who make them often put their own stamp on them. If Meabh can recognize the poison then we find the poisoner and we can all go home.'

Meabh pulled her hand away and shivered. ‘Dark arts did this. Dark arts and a twisted, evil creature to hurt
one so pure,' she said, her eyes darkening in her face. ‘It will be safe nowhere, welcome nowhere, no guest rights can it claim. It is a thing transformed by the horror of what it has done.'

‘Can the mare be helped?' asked Sorcha.

Meabh nodded. ‘I can turn back the poison, but she is weak and will not survive a second attack.'

Sorcha paled. ‘
Another
one? Why do you think there will be another attempt?'

‘Whatever creature attacked her, the mare read the whispers of its heart before it struck her down,' said Meabh. ‘It meant to kill her. I see no reason why it would not return to see the job finished.'

‘Why kill a unicorn?' asked Angus Óg.

Meabh shrugged. ‘Whoever did this is clearly insane. I cannot fathom the reasoning of a mad creature.'

‘But
who
was it, Meabh?' asked Seamus. ‘Who did this thing? Faerie or mortal?'

‘I cannot say – the mare did not see it before it struck and these things are hidden from me,' said Meabh as the faeries muttered angrily. ‘But the earth will burn beneath its feet. This thing can be tracked, in this world or in Tír na nÓg. It must be brought to bay and it must be tracked by one who can walk above and below the hollow hills.' She turned and her bright green gaze settled on Maddy. ‘One such as you, Feral Child.'

‘NO!' shouted Granda. ‘Leave her alone!'

Maddy clutched at his coat and felt herself transfixed as the cold, predatory gaze of the assembled faeries focused on her. Her breath froze in her throat and tears pricked at her eyes. Seamus walked over to her, his face set with anger. Panic rippled through the Sighted as the faeries began to advance.

Seamus stood over Maddy, and the shadow of his antlers blocked the rising moon, casting her into darkness. Granda's warm hands tightened on her and she felt Danny and Roisin wind their arms around hers, locking her in tight. She looked up at Seamus, her mind blank with fear and her eyes wide in her white face. ‘Give the girl to me, Bat,' said Seamus. ‘Do not make me ask twice.'

‘Don't do this,' said Granda. ‘For the love of God, Seamus, how long have we been friends? Leave her out of this – she's just a child. Why does it have to be her anyway?'

‘The Feral Child has the courage to walk in the mortal land and in Tír na nÓg, something no other Sighted has attempted to do for hundreds of years,' said Meabh. Wherever the hunter tries to flee, she can find it. And as you love your granddaughter so much, she will be a hostage for the Sighted's good behaviour.'

‘You don't need hostages for that,' said Granda. ‘We've kept the truce for centuries. You and I have even become friends, Seamus …'

Seamus smiled, but it was cold and cruel. ‘It's because we are friends that I don't take the girl by force. Look behind me. How are you going to stand against all four of the courts? I have a host of Tuatha and other faeries at my back willing to kill to avenge the hurt done to this mare and they will slaughter each other and everyone in the village until the hunter is found. Meabh is right. Maddy can find it and save countless lives. You are selfish, old man, if you do not hand her over. Especially when you have two other grandchildren standing with you whose lives hang in the balance.'

Maddy's heart sank as she listened to Seamus, and she waited for Granda to push her forward, but his hands stayed on her arms, and Roisin and Danny pressed closer to her sides.

‘This is your problem to sort out,' said Granda as Seamus loomed over him. ‘This is the work of a faerie or a Tuatha and it is for the Tuatha monarchs to find them and punish them. None of the Sighted would dream of doing this and none of them has the skill. Ask which of you has the skill of a poisoner. Meabh, with her black arts? Liadan, who is the only monarch who stands to gain from the mare's death?'

Meabh barked a harsh laugh.

‘We would not do this, nor any of our subjects,' said Sorcha. ‘We have more honour. Only your kind, that pollutes and destroys the earth you stand on, the very air that you breathe, would raise a hand against the unicorn that brings new life into the world. Only your kind would think that killing her would be worth more than that.'

‘This isn't going to go away,' said Aengus Óg. ‘The barrier that keeps us apart from the mortal world was forged in the same primal source that the unicorns sprang from. As she weakens, so does the magic that keeps us beneath the mounds. The boundaries are breaking down and we will pass through day and night as both worlds weaken. This crime will not go unavenged. You cannot hide in your houses when the sun sets and pray we pass you by. Find the mortal who did this, or we punish you all. If the world must pass into eternal night, then we will feast on mortal flesh while we wait for our end.'

‘I would listen to him, old man, if you love this child and the two that stand beside her,' said Meabh. ‘The barrier is failing already. How long will it take for the courts to rampage? How long before your door is broken in, and your children's doors? Will you see your grandchildren dead or in chains? And if the hunter
does return and kill this mare, then both worlds will plunge into winter and famine. Think of it, when it happened here. All those people dead, and this time there will be no ships on which to escape to other countries, because everywhere else will be dying too. You would risk war and famine to avoid giving up one child?'

‘This is a trick! Not even you, Meabh, Witch Queen, can say whether it was a faerie or a human who raised a hand against the unicorn,' said Granda, his voice shaking with fear. ‘You cannot prove it was us. You're not using my granddaughter as a pawn in Tuatha battles.'

Meabh smiled again, her eyes cold, while Niamh drew herself up to her full height. ‘This is no trick, you mortal worm,' Niamh said. ‘The Tuatha already stand before you on mortal soil and the Samhain Fesh – what you call Halloween – is still seven nights away.'

‘You are the strongest of your kind, called by one of the oldest of your people, you can overcome the barrier—'

‘The monarchs are capable of breaching the barrier for small amounts of time, but their entire courts?' asked Meabh. ‘Face the truth – the barrier is already weakening. By the night of Samhain it will have collapsed
completely, and if I cannot cure the mare in time or protect her life, it will stay gone. And every faerie in the land, the courts and the solitaries who can be controlled by no one, will come pouring out of that mound, hungry for human flesh.'

‘Why wouldn't you want that, Meabh?' asked Granda. ‘You, who always revelled in war?'

‘It's true, I would like to have back my mortal throne in Connacht and Ireland divided among the Tuatha again, rather than having only a season to govern,' said Meabh, ‘but not to rule over the dead. You may not feel it, but the land is sickening. I take no pleasure in ruling a charnel house and watching my own people waste away in it.'

‘Do you want to risk another war, Bat? Another war between mortal and Tuatha, the like of which has not been seen for thousands of years? Another famine that will spread across the world?' asked Seamus, his voice soft and cold. ‘The destruction of everything you love, for one child?'

‘For this child?' asked Granda. ‘Yes.' Maddy felt tears prick her eyes as she twisted the rough fabric of his coat in her fist. ‘I will risk another war. But will you? When the last one saw us the victors and your people driven beneath the hills.'

‘Then you were a single army with a single purpose,'
said Seamus. ‘Who will persuade your kind to look away from their computer screens and televisions and see the threat that walks among them? Who will persuade them to believe in faeries again? You, old man?'

‘We are wasting time in debate. There is a way to settle this,' said Meabh. ‘Bring the child to the Blarney Stone. Let the Stone decide the part she is to play – or not.'

‘Will you accept this, old man? Will you stand by the Stone's judgement?' asked Seamus.

‘No one is taking
any
of my grandchildren, and what a lump of rock has to say about it doesn't make any difference,' said Granda.

Seamus stepped closer and lowered his horned head to talk softly in Granda's ear. ‘You will come, old man, and put yourself at the Stone's mercy, or else I give the order to slaughter every mortal who stands in this field but Maddy.' Seamus turned back to the faeries and raised his voice. ‘We seek the wisdom of the Stone. Let a representative from each court accompany the Feral Child so all may know its judgement!'

As the faeries turned away from them and began to argue over who should be sent to the Stone, Maddy wrapped her arms around Granda's waist. ‘They noticed
me,' she whispered, her voice thick with the tears that were poised to scorch her face. ‘They saw me. I wish I could have hidden.'

Granda stroked her hair. ‘I know, love, I know. But I'm not letting them take you.'

When Seamus talked about going to the Blarney Stone Maddy didn't think he had meant right now. Not when it was dark and cold and the sky so thick with cloud she could not see her hand in front of her face once she left the glow of the street lights. Cut off from the rest of Blarney village by high stone walls, the grounds of Blarney Castle might as well have been the surface of the moon.

They had argued for ages in the field about who should go to hear the Stone's judgement. Maddy was beginning to understand that, for the Tuatha, fighting was a bit of a hobby. None of the monarchs could be bothered to go themselves, and all their subjects fought for the honour of representing them. Knives had been drawn, despite the truce banners, and at least one of Niamh's admirers had been dragged away unconscious. Maddy had watched them in silence, shivering in the
rain, surrounded protectively by Roisin, Danny and Granda. She could smell the wet wool of Granda's heavy coat, and Roisin's chilled fingers were entwined with hers. Danny watched the Tuatha with a grim, set face the mirror of Granda's expression.

Maddy was confused about what was going on. She had no idea what the Blarney Stone was going to tell them, if anything at all. Hundreds of thousands of tourists had kissed it, hoping for the gift of a silver tongue, and Maddy doubted any of them had got more than chapped lips. She wanted this whole nightmare to go away, for the unicorn to get up and walk off, for the Tuatha to go back to Tír na nÓg, and most of all, she wanted Granda, Roisin, Danny and herself to walk out of here and go home for dinner. These thoughts marched dully round and round in her head until one faerie strode up to Seamus and injected fear straight into her blood.

‘NO!' Maddy yelled, her voice climbing an octave with panic. ‘Not her!'

Fachtna had turned her blood-red gaze on her and bared her filed teeth in a parody of a smile. ‘You have no right to deny me, Feral Child,' she rasped. ‘I am the sword arm of the Winter Queen, her representative in all things.'