Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  Lugh shifted his weight, which upset the forces on the blade. And in that instant of wavering indecision, his grip tightened again like a spring-trap, and he acted.

  It was over before Arawn saw. The dagger had indeed tasted flesh, but that moment’s uncertainty had cost Turinne his life. Lugh’s ploy had been simple: confuse his opponent at the most critical moment, then make him relax, then strike—not down through the hands but inward, suddenly, with Lugh’s greater strength, into Turinne’s heart.

  Arawn heard the sharp gasp, the hiss of incredulous anger, that filled the Sons of Ailill. But the word he heard most clearly, and from Turinne, was “Forsworn!”

  “No,” Lugh snapped, as he casually removed his blade from Turinne’s body and let it slump aside. “You yourself named your doom.”

  “I…do not understand.”

  Lugh grinned a malicious grin. “My precise words upon proposing this were ‘we will proceed with the dagger.’ I did not say with what we would proceed. My words upon agreeing were ‘I have said it’; yours were ‘so be it’ and ‘let us do it.’ I never said what ‘it’ meant, nor did you, leaving me free to choose what sense I would.”

  “It was implicit,” Turinne gasped.

  “Ah, but only the explicit can be true.”

  “It is trickery! I would have thought better of you.”

  Lugh regarded him coldly. “You tricked me as well: with poison from the Mortal World, when the Laws of Dana gave you the right to call me out. And do not forget, you are a traitor: be glad I do not scour your soul with iron!”

  He rose then and turned toward his followers, leaving Turinne to die where he fell. He would return, of course; his soul would. But it might take ages for him to build another body, and Lugh, Arawn knew, would be watching.

  “Long live the King!” Nuada shouted. “Long live the Ard Rhi of Tir-Nan-Og! Long live High King Lugh!”

  Arawn stared Finvarra straight in the eye, grimacing sourly. “Long live,” the two cried together. “Long live High King Lugh!”

  Lugh turned to face them, smiling far too smugly. “Greetings, brothers!” he cried graciously. “And welcome to my court! One boon alone I claim of you, which is that you re-acclaim me, and the words be, ‘Long may Lugh Samildinach reign as High King of all the realm of Tir-Nan-Og.’ Or, you may face iron too.”

  As one, they blanched. As one, they also responded.

  “Now,” Lugh sighed, turning once again to sit on his throne, “would someone please tell me why my Land has moved?”

  III

  (Sullivan Cove, Georgia—Monday, June 30—just before midnight)

  Little Billy stared at his father’s face. At his nose, more specifically, wondering if the bristly hairs in his nostrils still stirred. They did, which was a relief. Big Billy really was breathing; he could hear the soft, whispery, hiss—hear it when his mom hushed, anyway, which wasn’t often. She was in the kitchen now, making up another pot of coffee to divide among herself, Uncle Dale, and him. His dad was beyond drinking, and had been ever since he’d woke up with a wild-eyed start, made that comment about killing boys, and started crying, then gone back to…sleep. That had really put the wind up Little Billy, too, because it was full of—what was that word David used? Oh, yeah: symbolism. For sure there was more to it than just a dream.

  And the howling—wailing, or whatever—that was still going on too, though it had kinda subsided into a distant sob like a big diesel engine very far away. Once, he was certain it had ended, and his heart had all but stopped because he had a strong suspicion that its ending meant his dad was dead. He hadn’t been. Thank God. But the whole thing still freaked him because he knew something magic was going on close by; he’d learned to sense such things, or else it was in his genes the same way it’d been in David’s and David-the-Elder’s. In any event, it was like Life and Death fought some enormous battle that sent ripples even here, and that the wailing ebbed and flowed with the tides of that weird-ass battle.

  One thing was certain: nothing would be the same after tonight. In the meantime, maybe he should—

  He froze in the act of rising and stared transfixed at his father. The wailing had returned, louder than it had ever been. Louder again, and the nose hairs slowly stopped moving, and an unmarked tension along Big Billy’s jaw relaxed as his mouth fell open with a rattly hiss. And then the hairs stirred again.

  “No!” Little Billy gritted. “This isn’t. You aren’t—not yet!”

  And with that he rose and stalked through the kitchen door. His mom, who was at the counter making sandwiches, raised a brow as he passed. Uncle Dale was snoozing in a chair. “Goin’ to check the rain,” Little Billy announced, easing out the screen door.

  He was gonna check the rain, too: up on Lookout Rock, the place where something told him the only remaining chance of helping his father lay. Funny, though; it wasn’t raining now, and the sky had gone utterly clear, as though the thunderous cumuli had never existed. There was also something screwy about the western horizon, too, but he couldn’t figure out what. Nor did he care. Not remotely.

  Chapter XXII: Going Home

  (Lookout Rock, Georgia—Tuesday, July 1—the wee hours)

  “Oh, my God!” David groaned, staring at Fionchadd through sodden, bloody hair. “You’re cut off here, aren’t you?”

  “What?” Kirkwood grunted, drifting over to join them, atasi in hand. One of the few who’d survived the night unbloodied, he was more alert than most of their cadre, a couple of whom, notably LaWanda, seemed dangerously close to shock. David doubted he was entirely in his right mind himself, and knew he wasn’t when he thought about Brock. He scowled at his Faery friend, who looked like something the cat had dragged in after gnawing on it a while.

  “Madness,” Fionchadd mumbled as though to himself, beginning to pace. “As best I can tell, I am indeed cut off from Faerie, yet my body is substance of that Land, and that link is never severed. Faerie will begin to draw on me. It will be subtle at first, a minor irritation, but will grow stronger day by day. Eventually…one goes mad. No one knows what happens then.”

  David shrugged helplessly and picked up his atasi. “Christ, Finno, I don’t know what to say. I mean, you knew the risk. You should’ve covered your ass.”

  The Faery regarded him levelly. “Would you have?” Another shrug, a wary smile; the first in what seemed like hours. “Probably not. But hey, we’ll figure out something.

  In the meantime, you can stay with me and Alec down in Athens.”

  “Or me,” Kirkwood chimed in. “Wouldn’t mind pickin’ this boy’s brain a while.”

  “I was fixing to suggest the same thing,” Sandy inserted, ambling up with Myra, with whom she seemed to have bonded. “Sit on the porch, drink beer, and discuss Faery physics. Like what’s this stuff about changing ‘substance’ mean, anyway? Best I can figure it involves one of those quirky subatomic things like charm or spin, or something. Like positive to negative, only you don’t get antimatter or anything.”

  Fionchadd regarded her woodenly. “I would be glad to discuss these things. But still—”

  “Guy wants to go home,” Calvin said from where he was inspecting the nearest body.

  “We already knew that,” David grumbled.

  “No big deal,” Calvin replied easily, flopping down beside Sandy. “He’s still got his boat, right? It’s in splinters, but maybe it could be fixed. Plus”—he squinted at Fionchadd in the uncertain light—“correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you part Powersmith? But that’s not the same as Faery, right? So can’t you still get to their place from Galunlati? And from there to Faerie?”

  “Right!” David took up eagerly. “And we know how to get to Galunlati!”

  “Unless,” Liz cautioned, “we moved those places along with Tir-Nan-Og.”

  Fionchadd shook his head. “We did not. I learned the spell as Aife did. It was quite specific.”

  “Well then,” Kirkwood concluded brightly. “You’re okay! You hang around here
a while, put some meat on your bones, and when you start gettin’ antsy, Cal here ships you off to Galunlati, and you make your way back home from there.”

  “Yes,” Fionchadd considered. “That actually does sound possible.”

  Liz nudged David with a knee. “What about Alec?” David looked up from scouring the atasi with a rag he’d picked up somewhere. And saw his friend—his best friend—squatting by the edge of the pool farthest from the mass of floating bodies, staring into that cold, wet, mirror-darkness, sometimes stirring it with a stick. Aife was where they’d left her, floating on her back as though she had no weight at all. No one had touched her, though Fionchadd had flung the remains of his cloak over her face, through which, by what couldn’t be entirely luck, some of her beauty still showed.

  Again, David sighed. “He’ll be okay. I think he really has given her up now. In fact, I think he had a pretty good idea beforehand it’d never work. He needs to be his own man for a while, and never would’ve been with Aife. No way they could’ve ever been equal partners.”

  Liz nodded. “Better keep an eye on him, though.”

  David nodded back. “Never fear.”

  “I, uh, hate to mention this,” Scott drawled, “but we really do have to figure out what to do about these bodies.”

  “Anyone make a count?” Sandy wondered.

  David craned his neck. “Aik’s doin’ one now. Prob’ly pilferin’ everything in sight for weapons, too; not that I blame him. Somebody oughta get something out of this.”

  Liz snorted.

  David rose, aware as he pressed down how sore his arm was, like his headache, which reminded him of his possible concussion every time he moved. His arm really was a mess, too, with a deep oozing furrow four inches long in his left biceps, where a bullet had winged him pretty damned solid, with a sword-scrape right on top of it. Probably should’ve bound it up a long time ago. Except, Christ, he’d only had it maybe ten minutes! Which seemed impossible. He ripped at the sleeve—and winced. As soon as they got things squared away here, he’d…

  What? By all reasonable standards, this whole cruddy mess was over. They’d achieved their goal: had moved Tir-Nan-Og, so that it was no longer threatened by the new resort down at Sullivan Cove. But that problem still remained: the rape of his ancestral land, and he doubted Mystic Mountain Properties would be sympathetic.

  And there was still the matter of his pa. A nap would be nice too. Food. A bath in very hot water. At least it wasn’t raining, though it might as well have been, for a thick summer fog had risen, completely veiling the world beyond the ledge. Which was just as well; he didn’t want to contemplate the last thing he’d seen out there. Shoot, for all he knew, Arawn’s crowd could’ve escaped…whatever, and be on their way back now. Maybe they should post another guard.

  In the meantime, they really did have to do something about the bodies. And since calling the authorities was not an option (no way they’d be able to deal with those sorts of questions), he supposed they’d have to consider arcane alternatives. In any event, they had to get ’em out of the water and try to identify ’em, especially the mortals—not that he expected to find IDs.

  “So how many we got?” he asked Aikin as he picked his way along what would never again be a peaceful shore.

  “Thirty-two—I think; critters weren’t picky about tearin’ ’em up. Plus Elyyoth and…Aife.”

  “Separate deal,” David told him. “We’ll ask Finno how they handle this kind of thing in Faerie.”

  “The rest?” Scott wondered.

  David looked to Aikin for advice. “Burn ’em, maybe? The Faeries anyway. Or just leave ’em and let nature take its course. I mean, their bodies don’t seem to hang around long over here.”

  “What about the mortals, though? Can’t bury ’em. Can’t leave ’em. Can’t report ’em, either.”

  “And I’d just as soon Ma didn’t know,” David finished.

  “Won’t get any easier,” Aikin prompted from beside the nearest body: a slender, rather hard-faced Faery woman. “First thing I guess is to lay ’em all out in a row. You guys wanta give me a hand?”

  “No,” David muttered, but joined him. “Head or feet?”

  “Alternate,” Aikin gave back. “I’ll take head this time.”

  David frowned as he hunkered down at the fallen warrior’s boots. No obvious wounds showed on her body, so he wondered how she’d died. But then Aikin twitched the hair away from her throat and he saw. She was one of the ones Alec had dispatched.

  He wondered if he was up for this; not only from the pain in his arm but from—he faced it squarely—the way it would remind him of Brock. Still, it had to be done, and he was no better than the others, and indeed no more affected. Steeling himself, he reached for the warrior’s ankles.

  And flinched back in horror, for his fingers had gone in too far!

  He touched her again—higher.

  Same effect.

  “Oh, shit!” spat a startled Aikin. “Oh, fuckin’ bloody friggin’ damn!”

  “What?” Liz wondered, looking up.

  “Finno!” David called. “You got any—?”

  Fionchadd padded up beside them and regarded the woman with cold, dispassionate eyes. “Two things,” he observed. “First, without spirit to maintain it, and with all Power fled, and being made of the stuff of another World, there is little to bind these bodies together. Too, the pool drank deep indeed. It drank blood, aye, for blood contains much Power. But it also drank of more subtle…energies, you would say. And since we were wet all over, it could draw Power from virtually everything.”

  “Hmm,” Sandy inserted, from behind Calvin. “Makes sense. I mean, think, folks: how much energy would be required to move a mass the size of Tir-Nan-Og?—and it was a physical mass, no mistake! And then remember how much potential there is in a person’s atomic structure if you could tap it. Play with Einstein a while, and you get some amazing numbers.”

  “An A-bomb channeled through Aife?” David snorted. “I don’t think so. No, scratch that,” he corrected. “Don’t want to think so.”

  “Me neither,” Calvin agreed, looking pointedly at Fionchadd. “But what you’re saying is that if we leave ’em here, they’ll eventually just dry up and blow away?”

  “Yes,” the Faery agreed. “Flesh first, then clothing, then stone and metal. Those last, however, you may have to salvage.”

  “And the mortals?”

  “Same thing, but slower. I think,” he added, “that the spell still lingers here in this spring and would gladly suck the rest of these bodies down. I think that would provide the final…sealing.”

  “Whatever,” David grunted. “Let’s just get movin’.”

  It took less than ten minutes, with all the men save Alec and Piper pitching in. The women, by choice, stayed away, but Piper played a suitable lament. He settled on “Flowers in the Forest.”

  Nor was it as bad as David expected. Over half of the bodies in the water proved to be essentially floating shells and were all but dissolved already. Submerging them helped, so all that remained was to wade them into deep water and hold them down for a while, after first stripping all Faeries of weaponry and jewels. Wergild, Fionchadd proclaimed, for Brock, Aife, and Elyyoth. And while the metal would eventually wear away, gems, silver, and gold dispersed very slowly indeed.

  The humans were a larger problem, mostly because their clothing, being Faerie in origin, didn’t seem to be lasting as long as their bodies. Finally David remembered the ropes that had bound their latest lean-to together, and with them and the numerous stones that littered the lookout, they weighted the corpses. A day—two at the max, Fionchadd said—and they’d dissolve as well. Their weapons, they’d cache nearby for the nonce, then retrieve someday for burial in the Sullivan family cemetery.

  Of Elyyoth, there was no sign. Then again, he’d been among the first Faeries to fall and had died in what was then very hungry water.

  Aife’s fate was Alec’s decision. “I don’
t want her with the rest of them,” he said. “Otherwise, I…I don’t care.”

  Fionchadd gnawed his lip. “I could blast her with Power—I have enough for that. But I would rather spend it healing your injuries.”

  Alec smiled wanly. “Actually, I was thinking there’s probably enough dry wood left in the lean-to for a pyre.”

  By unspoken consent, David and Aikin went to accomplish that, leaving Fionchadd, Scott, and Kirkwood to handle the removal of Aife’s body. Being the last casualty, and having died as affairs were resolving, she was almost intact, though Calvin commented on a disquieting lightness when he and Kirkwood lifted her onto the makeshift bier. Fionchadd shrouded her with his cloak. David laid an arm on Alec’s shoulders. “Hang in there, big guy. We’re almost done. You want us here, we’ll stay; you want us gone…we’re outa here.”

  “Stay until sunrise,” Alec said. “That’d be a good time, I think.”

  Sunrise was an hour away by David’s estimation, and while he was desperate to get to a phone and check on his pa, he was too fried to even think of leaving yet. With his fellows, he found towels and dry clothes in one or the other vehicles and changed. A few napped. Wounds were tended, notably David’s, Alec’s, and LaWanda’s. Scott and Kirkwood stood guard, though everyone retained a weapon.

  It was David who remembered the ulunsuti. It lay where it had rolled during the first attack: lodged beneath a piece of driftwood with the pot that held it not far away. He touched it cautiously—and jumped back in alarm when the crystal pulsed with light. “Folks…!” he yelled.

  Calvin was there in a trice, with Kirkwood and Liz close behind. David hadn’t moved the stone since it awakened, but had never let it out of his sight. It was still glowing, too; more brightly by the moment, in fact, and as David stared at it, images took form, in the crimson septum first, then reaching out in a glare of light to fill a circle maybe two yards across. A face appeared within that circle: black hair, dark eyes, pale face, long mustache. Crown. It wavered briefly, then stabilized into the image of Lugh Samildinach—on his throne—with a dagger thrust into its arm by way of his hand. He too looked freshly bathed and dressed.