The Black North

by Nigel McDowell

  ‘Melancholy Mountains,’ the landlady corrected.

  ‘Quiet,’ Merrigutt told her.

  The small girl finished: ‘He said that the King wanted all the boys for himself.’

  ‘He?’ repeated Oona.

  ‘The one,’ said the girl, and she shuddered, ‘with no face.’

  Suddenly, gunfire ceased like sound had been shut off. Only one sound was permitted, a single shout heard –

  ‘Weak-minded women of Loftborough – let’s have none of this needless waste now! Let me say just this and make it simple, ladies: you’ve got as long as it takes for my men to reload before we destroy your town entirely!’

  ‘Sounds a bit more well to-do than a common Invader,’ said the boy of the Big House.

  ‘It’s him,’ said Merrigutt. She was looking at Oona. ‘Faceless Invader, Carrion Changeling on his shoulder doing the talking: the King’s Captain.’

  ‘Very well then!’ came the voice of the Faceless. ‘We have given ample opportunity!’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Oona asked Merrigutt.

  ‘Now you need to be going,’ said the landlady, hands pushing, willing Oona away. ‘Me and the other ladies, we’ll take it from here. You go upstairs and left, end of the hall and then out, onto the window and across to Mrs Donnelly next door. I’ll hold them back as long as I can. And I’ll look after the wee girl here too.’ And the look she gave the girl was so fond, so full of affection – it made Oona happier, feeling that maybe the fight had been worth something.

  ‘Thanks for your help, missus,’ said Oona.

  ‘No bother at all,’ said the landlady. ‘Now go on!’

  So away then, Oona up the stairs with the jackdaw on her shoulder, boy of the Big House thumping along behind, calling, ‘Wait for me!’

  Long hallway – Oona ran left like she’d been told, ceiling and floor sharp-sloped, whole place shaking. Something struck the house and made it pitch and Oona was jostled by walls. She kept going though, pistol still in her hand, and at the end reached a circular window. Stubborn thing, it had to be elbowed open and across the gap she saw a woman waiting – must’ve been Mrs Donnelly.

  ‘Come on!’ the neighbour shouted over. ‘Be quick!’

  Oona climbed onto the sill. It was only feet between The Loyal Martyr and Mrs Donnelly’s but if things changed, if either house moved, then –?

  ‘Jump now!’ said Merrigutt. Oona didn’t think, just leapt– Mrs Donnelly caught and held Oona tight, helping her in through the window. They turned together and watched the boy of the Big House make his leap – he managed it better than any one of them would’ve thought. Oona and Mrs Donnelly both grabbed for him and hauled him in.

  ‘Here,’ said Mrs Donnelly, and she opened Oona’s satchel and added things. ‘Some food and that. Take it and go – all the way to the end there, past me mother’s ugly oul vase with the green faces of the Wee Folk on it, then right, and then out. Mrs O’Keefe – she’ll be there to help you next.’

  A nod from Oona, and on into another corridor. Another storm of gunfire from outside felt like it was following – had some Invaders seen them leave The Loyal Martyr? Then Oona saw the vase: green faces all grinning, figures shrunken and ugly as Sorrowful sin, and she went right. Another circular window and then –

  No, thought Oona. Too much of a gap to the next house, too much to be cleared in a leap!

  But Mrs O’Keefe was there and ready – from the window next door she was pushing a ladder, giving them something to clamber across on.

  ‘No other choice,’ said Merrigutt, still on Oona’s shoulder.

  Oona climbed out. She preferred to stand, balancing with arms out. She went fast as she could across, praying to herself as she went, as gunfire and falling fire and smoke all boiled around her – Sorrowful Lady, protect us. Sorrowful Lady, don’t let me fall …

  ‘You’d be best to drop that gun and you’d move quicker!’ Merrigutt told her.

  But over safely anyway, and as soon as Oona arrived Mrs O’Keefe said, ‘Here – take this.’ Oona felt more food stuffed into her bag.

  ‘It’s Innislone all over again,’ said Merrigutt. ‘Forgot how keen the Northerners are to feed people.’

  The boy from the Big House arrived with them and Mrs O’Keefe said, ‘Now Mrs McSooth will help you, but her place is too far over. You’ll need to climb up into the attic and along, out the end window. Tight squeeze but it’s the only way now.’ And by her knees Mrs O’Keefe stooped and opened a low door. Behind hid a steep staircase.

  Oona crouched and whispered to no one, ‘Tight squeeze is right.’

  She crawled in, and as soon as the boy of the Big House followed and was through, Mrs O’Keefe shut the door. Oona heard a key turned in the lock. She had to clamber up steep steps and when the attic was reached it was too low for standing so Oona had to stay crouched.

  Merrigutt left her to circle for some seconds and then shouted, ‘Over here!’

  The jackdaw was at the end, perched at another circular window. Oona travelled in a hunch across the attic to see – true enough, the last house was far. Just too far, like Mrs O’Keefe had said.

  ‘Up onto the roof,’ said Merrigutt. ‘Either that or nothing.’

  ‘How do we get out though?’ asked Oona.

  ‘This is how, ladies!’ said the boy. He’d found a wooden step-ladder. He shook it out and settled it on the floor. All his criss-cross and clambering ways in the Big House had been a help – he was up it quick and opening a skylight to squirm through.

  Oona followed, calling, ‘Don’t call us ladies!’

  Out onto the roof, and Oona saw all of Loftborough, all of what was becoming –

  Some women still on the street but most were at their windows firing down on Invaders and Briar-Witches, or throwing what furniture or kitchenware they could, dropping boiled water or bags of flour that ignited blue when they met flame. But the battle wasn’t a battle – fire was travelling too easily, houses shifting and passing flame to one another. Loftborough would defeat itself soon, would be destroyed by its own whims.

  ‘Over here, youse ones!’

  Oona turned at the call of another Loftborough woman, and saw what must’ve been Mrs McSooth.

  ‘Quick!’ Mrs Next-Door was calling. ‘Not much time now!’

  But how could they cross? Crazy! Could the woman not see it was too far?

  And like blown blades in a meadow, the houses drifted away from one another and Oona lost footing, falling and rolling and almost dropping, but Merrigutt was there to save her with sharp claws, the boy of the Big House too, grabbing, dragging her back onto the roof. But they’d been seen –

  ‘That house near the end of the street! I see people on the roof!’

  Oona stood. She watched – one of the women on the ground was being held by an Invader, and another arrived to jab her in the belly with his rifle-butt. There was laughter, from men and from Briar-Witches. And Oona discovered her own hands moving, without much thought: tucking the pistol into her cloak, the hand going suddenly to her satchel, to snatch for the Loam Stone.

  ‘Oona,’ said Merrigutt, ‘what’re you doing now?’

  Oona held the Stone tight: its heat felt like it could scorch, so ferocious she thought it was ready to flower into bright flame. And Oona was shown her way to revenge. The Stone had called, made claims and boasted – telling Oona what it could do if she willed it – she needed to test. So she lifted the Stone high and held it, all thoughts swirling around Bridget … and then anger made her act. She swung her arm as though the gesture could flatten all in sight with one sweep and flame was dragged like wire from rooftops, falling and settling among Invaders and Briar-Witches. And the night was made raw – torn open by their screaming.

  But no sound for Oona. Like the hush that the Coach-A-Bower brought into a place, she heard nothing but the certainty of her own thoughts: all that existed was the rightness of her anger.

  Spurred by her own sense of command, Oona whipped her a
rm upwards and flame reached high, a funnel that she dreamed wider, brighter … and then let fall, spanning the stone street of Loftborough. And did she feel better, watching Invaders and Witches transformed to cinder? Did she feel herself not someone to be captured or ruled, but a person who could have what she dreamed, desired?

  A voice answered, one heard in the darkest of forests, dimmest of nightmares: ‘Now you know. Now you realise, Oona Kavanagh. Now you see.’

  Oona felt one sure emotion besides anger: understanding. She knew as she stood on that rooftop and flooded with the fullness of the Loam Stone’s power, why the King of the North desired it so desperately.

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  ‘Enough,’ said Merrigutt. Oona met the jackdaw’s eye – there she saw stillness, a bewilderment, as though she was looking on someone new. ‘Enough,’ she said again.

  ‘I have an idea!’ cried the boy of the Big House, suddenly. ‘Just wait …’

  And he shifted his weight only a little, in the smallest way, but it started a tipping of the house, a moving closer to next door, one chance shown to Oona as she ran, grabbing the Master of the Big House and throwing herself forwards, Merrigutt clutching tight to her shoulder –

  Moments in the air, flung and falling –

  Then the roof of Mrs McSooth’s house slammed against Oona’s chest. She held on. An impact beside said that the boy from the Big House had made it too.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Mrs McSooth, there to help them up. ‘Now follow.’

  They didn’t go down into the house but across the roof, having to scamper sideways along its narrow spine. A rope was waiting at the far end.

  ‘Here,’ said Mrs McSooth, ‘you’ll need food for the journey ahead.’ She produced a substantial parcel of goods.

  ‘Don’t even think about taking that!’ Merrigutt told Oona.

  More explosions, gunshots, Oona and the others on the roof the only target –

  ‘Quick!’ said the jackdaw.

  Oona slid the length of the rope to the ground, Loam Stone still in hand, the boy close behind, Mrs McSooth herself soon after. The fire dreamed by Oona still remained – barrier across the street to keep Invaders well enclosed, and keeping Oona and the rest safe for a little longer. Perhaps long enough for escape.

  ‘Do you have a horse or something, Missus?’ asked Oona. ‘Something we can leave on?’

  ‘I’ve got better than any oul horse!’ said Mrs McSooth, grinning, and the woman went into a delirious kind of jig – she clapped her hands three times quick and then stamped her right foot twice. And out of the dark loped something large: a creature flecked with filth and reeking of the wild, that Oona thought might’ve been born with a coat coloured somewhere between grey-white and moon but had been stained with so much, marred by long travel through the Black. It had no eyes, no way of seeing that Oona could make out.

  ‘A Whereabouts Wolf,’ said Merrigutt.

  ‘Last one left here in Loftborough,’ Mrs McSooth told them, and she approached the creature, laying one hand between its tall, hooded ears. ‘Used to be a whole pack of them but the men took them when they headed off with the Cause. She’ll take you anywhere you need going, this one. Just whisper and she’ll know it – I guarantee.’

  Oona moved towards the Whereabouts. She saw short legs and paws splayed and a snout as long as her arm dripping with wet, nostrils opening and shutting like a heart in alarm. She touched it – muddied coat was soft at first, and then each hair was suddenly as stiff-standing as the fibres on a hearth-brush. Oona watched the Wolf’s coat ripple – an intricate undulation in small circles, as though frisked by unseen palms.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Oona, though any words at all felt too little.

  ‘No, you’re the one to be thanked,’ said Mrs McSooth and the firelight showed tears coming to the woman’s eyes. ‘For taking this stand. We’ll not forget it. You’ll need to go North now. My husband, Eugene, he went North to fight. To the Burren is where the Cause is all gathering to fight this King. Head for the Melancholy Mountains pass, and then you’ll –’

  ‘Oona,’ said Merrigutt.

  One word, and not the beginning of a command to hurry nor a telling-off. The tone of the jackdaw was something else, made Oona colder. She turned to see –

  An Invader was standing few feet away. A figure with no face. And stationed on his shoulder, watching, was a small bird with crimson eyes.

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  Nothing spoke but near by fire. Then Mrs McSooth cried, ‘Go!’ She snatched a pitchfork from the ground and ran at the Faceless Invader. He knocked her to the ground, a dismissal in one single blow. He advanced on them.

  ‘Get on that Wolf, my girl!’ cried Merrigutt.

  Oona took handfuls of the Whereabout’s hair and pulled herself up onto its back, her eyes never leaving the Faceless. The figure stopped. The bird, the Carrion Changeling, spoke –

  ‘You have something, child. Something you do not understand.’

  ‘I understand it,’ said Oona, no lie in the words. She held the Loam Stone close to her heart. ‘I know it well enough!’

  ‘But you are not its rightful owner,’ said the bird. ‘It is no burden for a child to carry, for a young and foolish girl to have to bear.’

  Oona thought fire, thought of her own fury, the pure nightmares of the Stone still in her power … but she didn’t will it, didn’t act.

  ‘Let us take the Stone to its rightful owner,’ said the bird. ‘To the King of the North, soon to be the King of all this Isle! You know him already, do you not? He has been walking those dark lonely paths inside your mind. He knows you well, knows what to expect from you.’

  ‘He does,’ said Oona. A moment then of waiting – as though she was considering – and then Oona took Bridget’s pistol from her cloak and said, ‘But I’m a Kavanagh, and Kavanaghs don’t do as expected.’

  She fired a single shot. But like the Coachman, it had no effect on the Faceless.

  A sudden scream from the crimson-eyed bird –

  Shock made Oona drop the pistol –

  So small then suddenly large, changing in flight – size of a sparrow then size of a hawk, the Changeling left the Faceless Invader’s shoulder and swooped towards Oona, and at the same moment Merrigutt launched herself. Claw and beak and feather battled in the air as the Faceless continued towards Oona, arm outstretching –

  ‘Stop!’ cried the boy of the Big House, and he positioned himself in front of Oona, in front of the Whereabouts. ‘Like my father before me, I am Master in this town and I say no further!’

  He found some weapon to wield – like Mrs McSooth, something dull and practical and blunt and he ran at the Faceless. But too like Mrs McSooth – an easy blow from the Faceless and the boy was batted aside.

  ‘Do something!’ Oona told the Whereabouts, but the Wolf only quivered, hungering only for direction, to go. And hope left Oona, left her weak as she saw Merrigutt pinned to the ground by the Changeling.

  ‘Surrender the Stone,’ said the crimson-eyed hawk, one massive claw enclosing the jackdaw’s skull, tightening, ‘or I shall break her.’

  ‘Just go, my girl!’ the jackdaw told Oona. ‘Don’t wait! Whisper to the Whereabouts where you want to go and it’ll take you there!’

  Oona looked to the hand of the Faceless: reaching, there to receive –

  ‘Take the Stone from her!’ cried the Changeling.

  Then something new charging into their midst – in shadow and shiver of firelight Oona tried to see. Small figure? Something like a small child with a shrill cry of –

  ‘Get away from my brother!’

  ‘Sally!’ shouted the boy of the Big House.

  The statue of his twin sister was enough of a force to push the Faceless Invader aside and aim a kick at the hawk. The Changeling lifted, eyes like wildest wildfire as both birds cried –

  Hawk: ‘Stop them!’

  Merrigutt: ‘Just go! I’ll find you, my girl! No matter where in this Black, I’ll discover you!’


  And Oona whispered to the Whereabouts the first words she thought: ‘Take us to the middle of nowhere.’

  The Wolf bolted, Oona almost falling and then holding tighter, turning to look – so far on from the town in only a blink, Loftborough was a livid scar shrinking on dark, wreathed with smoke. She saw brother and sister of the Big House crouched together, transformed, a pair of stone statues clinging close. But less glad sightings: no Merrigutt, and the Faceless Invader standing with a stillness to match any statue, the Changeling on his shoulder watching, following with crimson eyes as Oona made swift escape.

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  So swift so cold that Oona had to keep eyes shut. Arms laced around the Whereabouts Wolf’s neck and face pressed into the animal’s soft-then-stiffening hair, she still held tight to the Loam Stone. And what waited for Oona in her mind, in the black behind her eyes? That darkest forest, that voice speaking from somewhere in her own deep self: ‘You cannot outrun me. You cannot escape what you have become. Like all things in this Black North, you are changing. Soon you will see. Soon you will know.’

  Oona knew this: she could relieve herself of the Stone, add it to cloak or satchel and have quiet in her mind. But Oona needed to know, to hear. The Stone had burned a place inside her, dark and hungering: she couldn’t close herself to the promise of knowledge.

  ‘You flee, but nowhere can be sanctuary for you now.’

  Oona whispered to the Whereabouts, ‘Faster. Please – take us faster on!’

  And the Wolf found more energy to move them; tireless, sightless thing thundering through Black, across empty wastes peopled only with trees looking like lone travellers lost. But despite their speed, Oona wondered how she could be safe wherever she went. Somewhere or nowhere or middle of nothing, what did it matter? The Faceless had seen the Loam Stone and there’d be no rest in him till he and that Changeling had it …

  The voice promised Oona: ‘I will have it. You will bring the Nightmare Stone to me.’