by Phil Parker
I appreciated Ankou’s bitterness. I suppose he wanted to die too. Oberon and Llyr were the ones who forced him to continue living a life of violence. I couldn’t escape the similarity of our situations. We’d both been Trooping Fairies, we’d been told repeatedly we served no other purpose than to slaughter our enemies. It was probably inevitable we’d end our days trying to kill each other, as murderers steeped in violence and blood. In the last few hours alone, I’d slain men out of pure hatred, adding to my ever-expanding body count. I’d exiled myself to a life of misery to avoid such casual butchery but here I was still doing it, just in a different place and for slightly different reasons.
The handle of my mug snapped off in my hand, to tumble to the floor and smash into a thousand pieces. I stared at the mess, uncertain how it had happened. Light from a lantern appeared suddenly to illuminate the bits of broken crockery and Amelie stood at my side.
‘You need to get some sleep.’
I tried to object and met a face as stern as her voice.
‘Go to bed. You look like Death.’
I snorted. ‘I hope not. I’d like his skill with a sword though.’
Amelie’s hand cuffed the side of my head sharply and made me yelp.
‘You were probably seen on your journey from the Tor portal, that fucking red wyvern isn’t exactly inconspicuous. My friends are keeping a look out but I’m not sacrificing them a third time, Robin. I want you out of here, first thing in the morning.’
I glanced up at the old woman, at her arm bound up in a sling. The cottage was quiet without Major to growl at me when I stepped out of line and his pack to bark and howl. I smiled sadly at her. I hadn’t apologised for the trouble I’d caused and now was too late. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
‘You can have my bed.’ She jerked her head at Oisin standing timidly behind her. ‘But only to sleep in.’
He rolled his eyes, and when I tried to object a second time, he took hold of my arm and led me upstairs. I collapsed on the bed, he sat in a large but uncomfortable chair until I told him I was too tired to be a threat and he should sleep on the bed. He did as he was told.
I stared up at the ceiling, savouring the mattress’ comfort, aware of Oisin’s body and reprimanded the urges that fought their way to my bloodstream. reminded myself that I was probably lying next to a liar and a spy, someone who had put us all in mortal danger. Thoughts buzzed in my head again and drove sleep away. Until that point I hadn’t considered how my feelings for him coloured my decisions but now, as I listened to his gentle breathing and inhaled his scent, the buzzing focused on that possibility.
Like a dying man, life flashed past me as I relived the moments since he’d entered my life, the buzzing turned into a low hum as some of my doubts turned into real possibilities.
I turned on my side to look at his dark outline. The full moon peeked through thin curtains to shed silvery light across his handsome features. He turned in my direction.
‘You’re too tired. Remember?’
I smiled. ‘We’ve spent several nights together haven’t we? Like old times.’
It was his turn to smile.
I threw myself on top of his body, grabbed him by the throat, it was so sudden he didn’t have time to fight me, knew he couldn’t anyway.
‘Was that why Mab sent you?’
His expression froze as he stared into my eyes, as he calculated the value of lying. My heart sank at his betrayal, I’d hoped the paranoia was a product of my exhaustion but it only confirmed I shouldn’t trust anyone. Regardless of my feelings.
‘Partly.’ A throaty whisper through a gripped windpipe.
‘The portal was your way to lead me into Ankou’s trap.’
‘No!’ He tried to shout but all he did was choke. I eased my grip. ‘No. That was a terrible coincidence. You must believe me Robin. I didn’t know he’d be there.’
‘At Hamdon Hill, when he held you hostage. That wasn’t real, was it?’
He hadn’t taken his eyes off me. ‘No. At least not after I told him who I was working for. All he wanted was you at that point. I agreed to cooperate.’
‘Why?’
Oisin wasn’t a threat, I’d achieved my goal of frightening him so I released him and hurled myself back on to the bed, angry at myself more than him.
‘You’d told me you were ready to die, to stop Llyr. I couldn’t let that happen.’
How typical of a poet, making grand gestures from the heart. I snorted my derision.
‘Even though it meant he would capture the Knights and potentially win his war with humanity?’
He gave a heavy sigh.
‘They’re not as important.’ I heard him turn, felt his eyes on me. ‘I’m sorry Robin.’
I ignored his simpering excuses. ‘Why is Mab involved? Why are you spying for her?’
Oisin took a deep breath, as though he was unburdening a great weight he’d carried. ‘Llyr’s grip on power is tenuous, his invasion has stalled. Everything I told you in your kitchen is true. Mab told me to accompany him so I could report back what he was doing. She offered to help me free Sibeal if I cooperated. I haven’t sent Mab a single report since we left your home. Honestly Robin.’
‘But why does Mab want reports from you? Why not ask Llyr?’
Another deep breath, he took my arm and tried to turn me to face him. I obliged for no other reason than to see if I was getting all the truth this time.
‘There is a plot to oust him. Mab and others can’t do it themselves, not openly, that’s not how they work. You know that.’
‘Who’s they?’
I felt him shrug. ‘I don’t know. Mab is secretive. But there are powerful players involved Robin. Very powerful. I think they have ambitions for the Light Court too.’
‘Depose Nimue? Impossible.’
‘She’s old, tired. She’s lost much of the fire that you’ll remember.’
I remembered it vividly. I’d suffered its heat on several occasions when my mouth had got the better of my brain. Even so, I’d always had the impression she liked me. Probably the way fire likes kindling wood.
‘Does she know about the Dark Court plans? Has anyone told her?’
Oisin snorted loudly. ‘And risk getting caught, tortured and executed? Don’t you remember what I told you about life there now?’
‘But why bring the fight into the human realm?’
He laughed, it was a bitter sound. ‘You don’t see it, do you?’
‘See what?’ Exhaustion made my brain sluggish.
He reached down and took my hand then squeezed it.
‘To remove Llyr from the throne, someone has to kill him. They can’t move against him, not openly.’
Exhaustion was claiming me and Oisin was spinning out his explanation as if it was one of his heroic ballads. ‘Get to the point, I’m tired.’
‘Llyr is Oberon’s only son, the rightful heir to the Dark Throne. He rules like his father. He’s so paranoid he kills anyone who presents a threat. He’s hated Robin, by everyone. Mab was the one who suggested if he captured the Knights it would help him regain his popularity and strengthen his hold on the throne.’
Oisin paused in the way he used to do when performing a dramatic tale.
‘She knew there was one man who would protect the Knights at all costs, even if it meant killing the High Lord of the Dark Court in the process.’
I didn’t have the energy to react. For much of my life in Tir na nÓg, I had been a political pawn. I thought I’d escaped, instead I’d been hauled into a game being played across two worlds. At any other time I would have been angry, shouted and bemoaned my lot, broken furniture and people’s heads. I was too exhausted for any of that. These people had even succeeded in souring the one relationship I’d hoped might stand apart from the darkness surrounding me. I glanced at the anxious eyes of the other man, still gripping my hand, he saw something in my eyes and let go immediately.
‘So I’m Mab’s puppet.’
/> ‘We both are Robin.’
I awoke to Amelie’s strident voice calling my name. It broke me out of a dream where I was a prisoner in a glass cell where I could see Oisin, the twins, Amelie and Keir but they couldn’t see me. Each one was in danger but I couldn’t intervene, no matter how hard I screamed and hammered on my transparent prison wall.
I turned my head to find the bed next to me empty.
‘Where’s Oisin?’
Amelie held out a scrap of paper, I was on my feet and in front of her in seconds. Her expression was as bleak and uncompromising as the message.
I’m sorry Robin.
I screwed up the piece of paper and threw it away. Amelie took hold of my arm.
‘They’re coming. You need to leave now.’
It wasn’t an orderly departure. Waking two exhausted teenagers from their sleep and marshalling them into action, I left to Amelie. I hurried to the stable where I had similar problems with the wyvern, sluggish from the cold and disorientated without either of its masters. She gave me a look that spoke openly of her dissatisfaction but she stirred and stretched all the same. I found myself thinking how Oisin would be grinning at my acceptance of the animal as a valuable asset. If the bastard hadn’t deserted me.
I stomped into the cottage and bellowed at the twins to hurry up.
An early morning sun, no more than a hazy orange ball in a dull, grey sky hung just above the line of trees behind the cottage. Everywhere was damp from melting snow and a light mist hovered in the air to decorate clothes with a pearly sheen of cold moisture that froze you to the bone.
The twins stood on either side of me as I surveyed the roadway at the foot of Amelie’s drive, their jade-green eyes watching me resentfully. Behind us the wyvern grumbled.
‘Where are you taking us now?’ It was Brea who asked and she did it with that tone I knew teenagers used when they’d rather be in bed, or anywhere other than where they were at that moment.
‘I don’t know,’ I snapped.
‘Great.’ Brea again, no doubt rolling her eyes.
‘If you haven’t noticed, I’m running out of places to hide you. I’d hoped to have had more time to make plans.’
‘Too busy fucking your boyfriend were you?’
I clenched my fist as I whirled around, to glare at the girl whose fierce expression met mine. Her brother stirred, his voice, like his face, filled with stoic dejection. His entire body sagged.
‘Pack it up sis. It’s not helping.’
She sniffed and returned to resentful silence. I glanced at the lad.
‘Can you sense them yet?’
My question was met with a frown. ‘Nothing.’
‘This way then,’ I said and pointed into the centre of the town.
‘Why?’ Brea asked, ‘that is if I’m allowed to ask questions?’
That girl had turned resentment into an art form.
‘We might get lucky and reach the Abbey. There’s a portal there. We could leave Glastonbury and find somewhere else in this country. The portal at Stonehenge might still be working.’
‘Another portal?’ Her question dripped sarcasm. ‘Won’t the walking skeleton be waiting for you again?’
I smiled, just to annoy her. ‘If he is you and wyvern can deal with him.’ Then, because they deserved to know my motives, ‘Using the portals gets us to places faster and avoids meeting any more gangs. We might avoid Llyr too.’
Finn nodded his agreement, Brea sniffed her indifference.
A wind off the Bristol Channel stirred, whipping up the mist into a cold sheet we trudged through as we made our way towards the recreation ground where Oisin and I had met the gang of boys. It was deserted now. Often, when Finn was about to say something he thought was important, he cleared his throat first. He did it now.
‘The skeleton man can’t be killed, can he?’
‘How did you know that?’
The kid could look a little awkward when he had to describe his psychic abilities, as though he was embarrassed by them. I remember his father being the same, he’d once told me a teenager’s need to conform is compromised with such a talent. You can’t fit in with everyone else, no matter how hard you try. Worse still, you know they think you’re a freak.
‘All the time he was fighting you he kept thinking how he’d kill you eventually, no matter how many times you killed him.’
‘That’s encouraging. Thanks.’
The lad flushed and I regretted the sarcasm. He wasn’t his sister. I’d never known how to deal with his sensitivity. A thought struck me.
‘Could you sense what can kill him?’
From some distance away dogs started barking. I picked up the pace as we hurried along Benedict Street. I hadn’t had a reply to my question but I knew the lad would be monitoring the area as well as reviewing what he’d found in Ankou’s head. He’d once described it as like searching through a filing cabinet with hundreds of folders filled with thousands of documents.
He cleared his throat.
‘Nothing definite. His body can heal given enough time, he hates that it can do that, but knows it gives him the edge in any fight, especially against you. He really loathes you, doesn’t he?’
‘What about his head?’
I’d once come across a character with similar abilities. I’d decapitated him in the end.
Finn’s eyes lost focus and we kept walking. As we reached St Mary’s church and the dog barking resumed in earnest and much closer, I got my answer.
‘It’s different. You swung your sword near his head on one occasion, didn’t you?’
I had. I think, deep in the recesses of my memory, that thought had been knocking on the door of my conscious mind at that point.
‘It was the only time I sensed real fear from him.’
The wyvern behind us stopped and raised its head at the same time Finn tensed and looked about him with urgency. The noise from the dogs ended abruptly, mid bark.
‘What?’ I asked.
The lad’s head snapped one way and then another, panic growing on his face.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘That doesn’t help!’ I yelled. ‘You must sense something, tell me, anything.’
He kept shaking his head as he looked up and down the empty street. The wyvern made a noise deep in its chest but it stared towards Magdalene Street.
‘Get ready,’ I yelled at Brea who rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. She’d already raised her arms, fingers straight out ready to fire, she watched her brother avidly.
I withdrew my sword from its permanent position, strapped on my back. I held it ready. We weren’t in a good position to defend; St Mary’s church sat at a T junction, we needed a strong wall at our backs. The entry into Magdalene Street was partly blocked by a wooden cart with a broken wheel but there was just enough space for the wyvern to get through. I reasoned we stood the best chance against the wall of the Abbey so I gestured towards the narrow gap.
‘Through there!’
At the same instant dark figures at the far end of Benedict Street appeared, running towards us with real speed.
‘Hurry’! I yelled.
I didn’t remember the abandoned cart from earlier and I certainly wasn’t going to squeeze past it at the same time as the wyvern, so I held the twins back. As the animal drew level with the cart it stopped suddenly, blocking the junction completely, I swore at its cantankerous nature and gestured for the twins to crawl under the cart.
The animal snorted and shuffled its body. That was the moment I realised it couldn’t move its legs.
‘Stop!’ I yelled at the twins.
Too late. On hands and knees they looked over their shoulders at me in bewilderment, unable to move either. Brea screamed her protests as she tried to pull her hands from the ground. Finn froze and turned his head to look beyond the cart, two seconds later the unmistakeably stylishly dressed figure of Llyr appeared on top of the cart, smiling broadly in my direction.
‘H
ello again Robin.’
From around the corners of St Mary’s church swarmed soldiers of all kinds, spriggans, boggarts and even a bunch of Nemean lion-men with their powerful bodies, mane-like hair and their distinctive double-headed battle axes. I considered trying to take on the spriggans and boggarts but the Nemeans were a different threat and there were too many of them. Llyr knew what I was thinking as he surveyed the scene from the top of the cart. I flashed the inevitable grin. The wyvern lashed her long neck and tail against the cart, making it wobble and thereby robbing Llyr of his big moment, he leapt down to stand in front of me as though he’d meant to do it. He gave the animal a withering look, she responded by thrashing from side to side until the cart shook. He nodded at my weapon.
I made a point of dropping my sword to the ground, it’s metallic clang echoed around the buildings.
‘Get the kids free before that animal kills them,’ I yelled.
They’d come prepared. Before freeing the kids, they manacled Brea’s hands and placed leather collars around their necks so they could lead them to stand in front of Llyr like pet dogs. A bunch of boggarts nervously pushed the cart out of the way, doing the best to avoid the wyvern who continued to snort and smash her tail against the buildings on either side of the road while staring in bewilderment at her immobile feet.
‘You’ve been elusive Robin,’ Llyr’s voice was like thick oil. ‘Trying to catch you involved fighting a rear-guard action in this shithole. Considering you claim to care for the humans, you’re responsible for so many deaths.’
‘But you’ve got me now.’
We were surrounded, there had to be over a hundred of them. We’d been corralled, like farm animals, into a pen. I couldn’t understand how it had happened and when I glanced at Finn I could see he was trying to find a similar answer. We held eye contact for a second and he discreetly shook his head.
Llyr spotted it too. The inevitable smile widened.
‘Don’t blame the boy, Robin. I came prepared.’
