The Unicorn Hunter

by Che Golden

  ‘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 scorc
h 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.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  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.’

  ‘She is right, Maddy,’ said Seamus. ‘She is Liadan’s captain. No one has the right to tell her no.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ said Maddy. ‘The last time she got me alone in the grounds of the castle she tried to stick a blade in my throat.’

  ‘We are under a banner of truce. She cannot harm you Maddy,’ said Seamus.

  ‘She’ll find a way!’

  ‘Maddy, be reasonable,’ warned Seamus.

  ‘Reasonable? That would be like, being mature, right?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Seamus.

  ‘Well, maturity comes with age, and if you send her into the castle with me I won’t ever mature more than a couple of hours,’ said Maddy, folding her arms and jutting her jaw. ‘If you want me to go along with all this, then: Pick. Someone. Else.’

  Seamus sighed and turned away. Fachtna snarled and strode over to Maddy, her huge wings standing stiff from her back, quivering with her rage. Granda, Danny and Roisin stepped closer to Maddy so she was partially shielded from the war faerie. ‘I will not forget this insult, Feral Child,’ she said. ‘You will pay for this, in blood and pain.’

  Maddy’s knees shook as she glared back but her voice was strong and low. ‘Just add it to the list of things I have done to make you angry, Fachtna,’ she said. ‘But I won this round.’

  Fachtna’s tattooed skin rippled as she tensed every muscle in her body. Her fingers flexed on her sword hilt and Maddy tried not to swallow as she wondered if Fachtna was angry enough to violate the truce and draw her sword anyway. After a long moment, Fachtna whirled away to stalk back to the Winter Court.

  So that was how Maddy ended up climbing the steps in the tower of Blarney Castle with Tuatha before and behind her. Light glimmered around their bodies and lit the narrow stairway. Maddy hated these stairs. They were narrow and steep, their edges worn to slippery pouty lips from centuries of feet running up and down them. There was a rusty iron rail bolted into the wall and she clung to it with white-knuckled fingers. The tall Tuatha were bent almost double as they squeezed up the narrow stairwell, the shadows on the wall scuttling on ahead of the living bodies. Maddy paused, puffing, and snatched a look over her shoulder. She could see the white face of Connor, Liadan’s gancanagh, behind her. He had been picked in Fachtna’s place, and while Maddy wasn’t wild about any of the Winter Court, she felt safe enough from Connor as long as he didn’t try to touch her.

  Granda and Dr Malloy had been the only Sighted allowed to come with Maddy. Granda had sent Roisin and Danny home. They had both protested loudly at the sight of Maddy’s white and fearful face, but Granda had insisted. ‘There is nothing you can do here. Go away home and spin your granny a tall tale until we come back.’

  Maddy’s breath misted faintly in front of her face. The inside of the castle was always a few degrees colder than the outside world and its walls wept night and day as if in despair at the ruin it had become. The stone smelled like the damp earth of a freshly dug grave even though only faint smears of grime could be seen on the steps. Weeping water gathered in every pit and dip, making it treacherous underfoot. Maddy’s rubber-soled trainers plashed and squeaked from time to time as they skidded on the grey stone.

  Her own laboured breathing and that of Granda and Dr Malloy roared in her ears. Nothing of the outside world could be heard inside the narrow stairwell. The grounds had been pitch black as they hurried through them, the only sounds the near bare branches rattling in the wind, the deep rushing of the river that cut the estate in half and the tortured rasp of a fox’s bark. But in the castle, it was only the sound of mortal breathing she could hear; all she could see was the stooped Tuatha ahead of her and all she could feel was the weight of all that stone piled above her head.

  On and on the stairs went, until Maddy could feel the panic of claustrophobia clawing into her throat. Sweat beaded her brow and when at last cool night air opened over her head she threw herself forward gratefully to cling to a tooth of the battlements.

  The wind at the top of the castle was a different animal. It shouldered its way past her, howling in her ear as it went. Below her she could see the pavilions of the Tuatha courts spread out and sounds of music and laughter drifted up to the lonely battlements. Liadan’s white tent alone was silent.

  ‘Do you know why we are here?’ asked Seamus as everyone gathered around Maddy, the Tuatha surrounding her with a glowing nimbus.

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Do you know what the Blarney Stone is?’

  Maddy shrugged. ‘I’ve heard a few legends. It was the gift of a goddess, or it’s part of the battlements they used as a privy hole so the Irish could have great fun watching the English kiss a toilet. That’s about it.’

  Seamus sighed. ‘When are you going to learn not to speak lightly of things you know nothing about? The Blarney Stone was a gift from the Tuatha to the Celts. It’s a Seeing Stone of the Coranied – it links this world directly to Tír na nÓg. Every time someone presses their lips to the Stone, the Coranied harvest their dreams, their nightmares, for their mistress the Morrighan. Their Stones around Ireland are what feed the dark faeries and keep Tír na nÓg alive. For allowing the Coranied to tap into their minds, the ancient Celts were given a promise that Tír na nÓg would stand forever and the Tuatha would have no need to find territory in the mortal world.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with me?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘The Coranied are seers and prophets. They can see into the future, and if you have a part to play in bringing the attacker of the unicorn to justice, they will know. They answer only to the Morrighan and they want what she wants – balance. Balance keeps both our worlds safe. Tuatha and mortal alike can trust what they say.’

  ‘Will the Coranied know who attacked the mare?’

  ‘They might. But they see the past only in fragments.’

  ‘
And if I do this, I can go?’

  ‘That depends on what the Stone judges your fate to be. The Stone will speak through you and we will all know its judgement.’

  Maddy looked at Granda. His eyes were dark in his face and his lips were pressed into a straight line. He gave a slight nod. Maddy sighed. ‘Fine. Let’s get it over with.’

  The floors in the middle of the castle tower had crumbled away and the battlements were a mere cat-walk around a yawning pit. There was a thin iron rail fencing her off from certain death, but Maddy kept one hand on the stone skin of the battlements and walked as close to them as she could. The empty space that gaped just inches from her feet was an impenetrable black that gave no hint of the vertiginous drop and bone-shattering, organ-crushing landing that awaited her if she fell.

  She walked cautiously to the area where the Blarney Stone was built into the battlements. It was a bit of a family tradition to kiss the Stone. Granny and Granda’s house was full of pictures of her cousins doing it in their Holy Communion clothes, but this would be Maddy’s first time. She peered down through the gap in the wall to the pale ribbon of the concrete path hundreds of feet below and gulped.

  ‘It’s easy enough,’ said Granda. ‘Just lie flat on your back, hold on to the bar in the wall, lean out and kiss the battlements. I’ll have a tight hold of your legs.’

  ‘Do I have to kiss it?’ asked Maddy, wrinkling her nose. ‘It doesn’t look very hygienic.’

  ‘It hasn’t killed anyone yet,’ said Seamus. ‘Just put your hand on it, if you have to, but get a move on.’

  So Maddy, not without a small amount of trepidation, lay on her back and dangled her torso out over the dizzying drop. She screwed her eyes up to ignore the sight of treetops far below her and put her palm flat against the Blarney Stone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  For a second, nothing happened. Maddy felt the blood in her head rush to her eyeballs and thought, Well, this makes me look really stupid.