The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  They stood shivering in their summer clothes, completely overtaken by the speed of it all.

  Pidge looked back and saw the shapes of the hounds in the distance, looking grey in the poor light.

  ‘They’ve caught up,’ he said, and Cooroo bristled.

  ‘I’m freezing to death, Pidge,’ Brigit said. Her teeth seemed to rattle as her jaw shook.

  He fumbled in his pocket and with stiff fingers he probed inside the leather bag for a hazel nut.

  When he managed at last to bring out a nut, it lay jumping slightly on his trembling hand. He thought it would never open, although really it opened almost at once. He had to hold out his arms to take the treasures the nut had contained as they grew in size. And in his arms he held two hooded coats of some kind of white skin, with boots and gloves to match. The bigger coat was lined with some kind of red fur and the smaller one was lined with blue. They struggled into them, relieved to find themselves warming up at once, but their hands were still cold. With numbed fingers they picked laboriously at the straps of their sandals, Pidge helping Brigit in the end, and they put on their boots. Brigit slid her hands into her gloves and the inside fur felt as soft and warm as swans’down, and from the tips of her fingers, her hands warmed up.

  ‘It’s like being dressed in a feather bed and we look like eskynose,’ she said and she snuggled her shoulders under her hood.

  Pidge flattened the sandals neatly in pairs and put them in the school-bag. Gratefully he slipped his gloves onto his hands and they were ready to go on.

  Then Brigit started to worry about Cooroo as there was nothing in the nut for him and he had waited so patiently in the cold until they were well-clad.

  ‘You’ll be cold with your poor bare paws.’

  Cooroo laughed.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘But you haven’t any boots or socks, and your paws have to walk on the cold ground,’ she said, frowning.

  ‘I’m already well-dressed in my own thick skin and I don’t need boots,’ he said and, lifting a paw, showed her his dark hard pad. ‘See? Just as good as those you have,’ he assured her.

  So they carried on walking on the brittle grass. The pliant earth had gone rigid with the cold and whenever they found a flower it looked to be carved out of coloured ice, and every bush they passed was decorated with transformed cobwebs, the loosely spun ones like ropes of crystals and the tunnel webs were cones of organdie.

  Occasionally they looked back and saw that the hounds were keeping their distance.

  Again the sky changed and now the sun was like a white peppermint stuck on grey paper. The wind blew against them and they braced themselves inside their coats and trudged on. They passed a small stream that gushed coldly and then a large puddle that already had a skin of ice.

  They reached an edge where the ground fell away in a sweeping shallow that spread for miles and miles to the right and left. And there before them was a massive forest of oak and ash and beech. From where they stood, they could see that it really was a wild old forest and not a mere plantation or small wood. Even as they looked, the top leaves on the trees were carried away in great sweeps by the wind, and in a few minutes the bare branches and twigs were like black scratches against the grey sky. Pidge thought sadly of the wonderful wheat and how it would all be destroyed.

  ‘Just what we need, plenty of cover,’ Cooroo murmured.

  ‘Won’t it be hard to get through with all the undergrowth?’ Pidge asked.

  ‘Nothing to the trouble the hounds will have when they’re tied to a scent. The undergrowth will make them even slower when they can’t see us again.’

  Dusk was falling as they entered the forest and the first snows flew.

  Inside the scrying-glass the snow had continued to swirl and would not settle.

  The Mórrígan lost patience and, using her full force, she threw it away—only to find that it would not be thrown away. It travelled no more than a few inches at the remarkable speed her strenuous throw had given it—and then it came to a stop and hovered steadily over the table. It cracked slightly and some of the snow fell.

  ‘A fox and snow, great difficulty for our hounds. The Dagda baulks us at every turn!’ The Mórrígan said, her beautiful face crooked with anger.

  ‘If there is a fox, if there is masking snow—let there be hunters,’ said Breda.

  She went back to her rats, selected four and made the rest go like breath on a cold window-pane. She changed to hunters the pair she had chosen to be hunters, and the other pair she changed into superb horses already equipped with saddles and bridles. The hunters wore belted white tunics and heavy cloaks of scarlet wool. Their hair hung down below their shoulders and it was as fair as silver. In their hands they carried long spears to be used as goads against the hounds; and each one had a hunting horn hanging from the belt under his cloak. In spite of their good looks and the handsomeness of their trappings, there was still something rather pointed about the shape of their faces and this was true even of the horses’ muzzles.

  They were warned most solemnly to do no more than track.

  ‘You cannot kill as yet,’ they were told.

  Breda reduced them from rat size to the scale that was suitable to the table landscape and she placed them among the hounds. Their nostrils were already working eagerly and their eyes gleamed.

  One of the hunters blew his horn and the other threatened the hounds with his spear. The hounds knew that they were enchantments and that they belonged to The Mórrígan and were therefore untouchable.

  Findepath was humiliated and unhappy, but Fowler only smiled secretly deep inside himself where no one could know.

  An air of superhuman calm descended on the glasshouse and the little cat grew bored and fell asleep.

  Chapter 31

  AT first the snow floated like feathers, but quickly changed to come down as a thick blanket that covered the tops of the trees. Some of it escaped the catching branches and after a time Cooroo was covered, and he too had a white coat.

  The floor of the forest was uneven and rough in places. To begin with the going was easy, as the undergrowth was shriveled from the wind’s blast, but further in it became more difficult. Where the wind had not penetrated, the spaces between the tree trunks were choked with foliage, and almost covered with bracken and saplings, ferns, brambles and wild fuschia bushes. Brigit kept a constant watch for nettles.

  Cooroo was clever and it wasn’t easy at all to keep up with him. His head moved constantly as he spied out the best way to go. Sometimes it would be a long finger of short-grown grass, and other times just bare ground where young trees had failed because the growth above had created a lack of light. There were many places where the earth had fallen away, leaving small escarpments and making little hollows where knotted roots were exposed. These were natural dug-outs and much used as homes, as the many burrows and scrapings showed. Sometimes they walked on moss but a lot of the time Brigit walked through dead leaves. Pidge never once noticed the way that Cooroo always looked to him for approval before going forward. At intervals, and for reasons unknown to him, Pidge chose the less easy way; Brigit always grumbled when this happened but Cooroo never complained. The frost glittered on his muzzle before vanishing on his breath, but it stayed on his brow and his eyes were brightly ringed. Brigit said that he had tinsel eyelashes and that he was a Christmas fox. She and Pidge were wonderfully warm now and the boots were soft as well as dry.

  They reached a clearing that was like a natural theatre and gasped when they saw how thickly the snow lay. The children ran out to the middle of the open space, excited by the marvellous snowstorm and overjoyed to be in it. They were exuberant and happy.

  Pidge stood with his head tilted back, looking upwards and letting the snow land on his face. He had to keep blinking his eyes. The falling snow made him feel very tall, as if he were a tree standing in its own space.

  The snow came powerfully down, flake upon flake. It fell commandingly in
its thousands of parts and no power in the world able to stop it. Pidge imagined a policeman standing with one arm raised, saying: ‘Halt!’, and he laughed and laughed. And then he pictured a grand Judge with his best wig on and his worst face, crying: ‘In The Name Of The Law!’, and he laughed even more. Brigit was laughing too, as she kept trying to catch an extra fat flake before it landed, and she fell flat on her face into the luxurious whiteness at every second step.

  Suddenly they heard the note of the hunting horn for the very first time.

  Pidge started in surprise.

  ‘What was that?’ Brigit called, only mildly curious.

  ‘I think it’s a hunting horn,’ he replied.

  ‘What are they hunting?’ she asked, looking with anxiety at Cooroo.

  ‘Us,’ said Cooroo.

  ‘What? The cheek of those brazen brats!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Not to catch us, though,’ Pidge reminded her, hoping that it really was true.

  ‘We’d best go on,’ Cooroo advised. ‘No!’ he added as they began to continue across the clearing. ‘Come back here to me and then we’ll go around the edge. Let them work for their living!’

  So they came back to him, stepping in their own deep footprints, and followed him as he skirted round the edge. Straightaway he found an animal track that went deeply in and, with a glance at Pidge to see what he thought, he took that way. When the track petered out, he found the best way to creep under things to little clearances, and always he found a passage, and each time he waited for Pidge to decide. And still Pidge was not conscious of the many little nods or head-shakes he had given, but just thought that he was following Cooroo.

  With their thick coats and boots, they no longer feared the undergrowth. They were well-protected, as long as they shielded their faces from snatching thorns by bending low their heads from time to time.

  It was darkening rapidly.

  Whenever they reached a glade or small open space, or even a place where timber had been knocked, they looked up and saw the snow whirling. All of the high branches were thickly coverd. There began to be whooshing sounds now and again, near and distant, as the weight of the snow became too much for the branches to hold, and it fell with soft explosions to the ground. Underfoot, the earth was frozen solid and, when they stepped on a stiffened puddle, the ice sometimes cracked like sugar candy; and at other times it splintered with a louder noise that was like the crack of a whip it was so sharp and loud. Cooroo told them to avoid the puddles and he advised them to keep to the quieter parts, and he said that Brigit shouldn’t walk through the brittle leaves. Brigit was sorry about this because she thought it was like crunching through cornflakes, with the way the leaves rustled.

  Every time they reached a new clearing they found that the snow lay deeper and deeper. In an odd way it made the near trees look tremendously powerful. Pidge discovered that if he kept looking down as he walked, he had the sensation that the whiteness at his feet was coming up to meet him. It made him feel slightly dazed so he stopped doing it.

  A hound barked and the sound cut through the air loudly. A horn was blown and they shuddered. Soon after this, they heard far-off crashing noises and they knew that the hunters had entered the forest at last.

  They turned anxiously to Cooroo.

  ‘We are still well ahead,’ he reassured them calmly. ‘The snow is covering up for us, so now they really will have to work hard.’

  ‘But I’m getting so tired,’ Brigit said.

  ‘No rest yet,’ he answered, kindly but firmly; and they went on, but they were not going as easily and lightly as before.

  ‘I hope they all get snow stuffed up their noses when they smell for us. I hope they all get miserable colds in their heads—and I really mean it,’ Brigit said.

  Pidge, too, was tired. He knew it was worse for Brigit as she was younger and smaller. His legs felt heavy and weak at the same time and he started to wonder if they would have enough strength to drag on to wherever the end was.

  Suddenly, the horns of the hunters rang through the forest; and it was terrifying and bloodcurdling because there seemed to be more than one, and they sounded as though the hunters were making good progress. Without another word they hurried on, seeming to gain new energy from fear.

  Pidge thought of the plantation of pines that he had imagined was a forest, and he remembered the woodman and his axe; and he was glad that now there was no deception, and that at least they knew where their enemies were, even if they had no idea of what the hunters were like or how many were in the sport.

  If we meet up with any person, I’ll be very careful, he said to himself; especially after the people in Castle Durance, as well as that woodcutter. Animals and insects seem to be the ones we can most trust and I won’t forget it.

  The ground had become even more broken and rough. At times they had to scramble over rocky outcrops and make their way round boulders and across frozen streams. Yet, tired as they were, when they happened on a stilled waterfall that dropped from a high edge as a sheet of ice, they forgot their tiredness and stopped to wonder at it. Brigit muttered that it was like the track of a giant snail but for being too beautiful.

  From behind a dog barked and almost immediately a second dog howled and then a hunter blew his horn.

  ‘Two strayed—brought back to the pack by the horn,’ Cooroo explained.

  With the coming of darkness, the wind had dropped and the trees were silent. Now it returned and shook the branches and took some of the snow off the tops in furious billowing clouds. This time the wind was blowing from behind. Cooroo said that this was good because it blew their scent away from the hunters and also it would keep him informed of where their enemies were. He stopped and tested the wind. All at once an expression of disbelief and amusement crossed his face.

  ‘I think I smell my dinner,’ he said, and he was gone.

  In one second—he was gone! All that they saw of him was the tip of his brush as he disappeared in the falling snow.

  The children were utterly shocked and surprised. Pidge felt bitterly disappointed. He felt that Cooroo had deserted them in the middle of their troubles, just to go and hunt for himself. He could scarcely believe it.

  ‘We’d better be going on,’ he said gruffly.

  Brigit was too surprised to even know what question to ask.

  They walked on through the forest.

  At last Brigit said:

  ‘Will he be coming back?’

  And Pidge answered:

  ‘I don’t know.’

  With the wind in his face and the snow almost blinding him, Cooroo made his way silently. His nostrils worked continually and the trail he followed was the trail that he and the children had made themselves. He didn’t stop until he found a place from where he could get a reasonably good view of anything that might emerge from the surrounding trees into a small clearing. He didn’t cross the space but lay down at the edge in a little hollow between two rocks. He waited. Soon he was covered with snow.

  It was a terrible wait and he wondered if he were simply waiting for his own death. The hunters and the hounds were coming nearer and the fearful rustling in the undergrowth grew louder and louder. His hackles rose.

  Suddenly he half-glimpsed the leading hound as it emerged from the trees and into the clearing. Through the swirling snow, the hound’s form was blurred and it was difficult to see it properly. Still Cooroo waited.

  Following Findepath, four more hounds came into sight. They plunged into drifts near the trees, half-sinking. Cooroo didn’t as much as twitch. The forest seemed alive with the sounds of the horses’ hooves although in truth, they were very muffled. And then the two riders were out of cover. Cooroo crouched lower. The figures of the riders, shrouded in their cloaks now turned white, were as obscured by the blizzard as the hounds were. They sat hunched in their saddles and were mere shapes. Fighting his instincts, he waited until they had gained the centre of the clearing, and then he sprang out with his teeth bared and
his amber eyes ablaze.

  ‘I know you well! You are RAT!’ he said, making a leap at the hunters and their horses.

  At once, Breda’s magic was broken and instead of the mounted hunters, four rats stood blinking on the hard-frozen snow.

  The hounds were struck rigid.

  They gazed spellbound at the rats, and then there was a snapping and a snarling and the blind impulse towards action. The rats were no longer untouchable.

  With sharp cries of fear they scattered; and the hounds went after them.

  Cooroo laughed and he glided away. Then he ran to catch up with his friends, and knowing the way made it easier.

  The hounds chased the rats until they vanished as puffs of grey dust, and then disgruntled and tired, they took up their laborious work once more.

  Chapter 32

  THE children were overjoyed when Cooroo appeared beside them again. He was panting but he seemed to be full of something like fun.

  ‘I thought you’d left us for good,’ Pidge said.

  ‘Did you get your dinner?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘No,’ he said, still panting, but his eyes danced with mischief.

  When he had got his breath back, he told them what had happened, stopping in his tracks to suppress his laughter.

  Pidge felt awful.

  ‘You could have been wrong. You might have been killed. And we would never have known what you did for us,’ he said, his voice agitated.

  Cooroo pushed against him with his shoulder. It was a nudge of playful good humour.

  ‘I wasn’t though—was I?’ he said.

  ‘You were lucky the hounds didn’t go for you instead of the rats,’ Pidge insisted.

  ‘I must have much more than a one-chance life,’ Cooroo answered jauntily, and they went on again.

  In a while the wind dropped completely and the snow stopped falling. And after a long time, when they left the forest at last, it was really dark.

  The night was calm and still and full of silence. It was wonderfully beautiful. Everywhere the snow lay thickly, frosted and glittering. The stars were low in the heavens and they were fantastically large and they glittered as well. The moon was a great shining gong in the sky and it hung in a bowl of brightness and was glorious in its vivid shining.