‘That’s it, girl,’ he murmured. ‘That’ll break the spell. Now – run!’
But Bansi was rooted to the spot, stunned by the horrific sight ahead.
‘Gah! Pixies playing games, no doubt!’ Annis snarled to herself. Turning back towards Bansi, she smiled a hideous smile; her long canines and sharp front teeth glinted gruesomely in the sunlight as she held out one wrinkled, claw-like hand. ‘Come, dear child,’ she grated. ‘Come and sleep, before it’s time to eat.’ A long, blood-red tongue lashed out and licked her withered lips greedily.
Bansi stepped back in disgust and terror, and the Hag’s red-veined eyes widened in surprise. They flicked down to Bansi’s waist and took in the sight of her hand grasping the iron handle of the poker.
‘What’s that for, my dear?’ she wheedled. ‘Not afraid of me, are you? Come – I’m your friend. I’ll keep you safe . . .’
Suddenly and with incredible speed for one so hunched and twisted, she rushed at Bansi, talons extended. Bansi’s hand came up; the poker slashed at the Hag’s face. She screamed and clutched her eyes, bending double with the pain.
Bansi turned and ran for her life. Behind her, she heard Annis’s harsh rasping cry: ‘Brúid! Fresh meat! Catch it, Brúid! Catch it and I’ll share it!’
From deep in the trees somewhere to Bansi’s left came an answer, a deep-throated, animal growl: ‘Hurrh! Meat?’ Then there was the sound of something large and strong crashing through the woods, snapping off branches as it beat its way towards her.
Bansi gripped the poker tightly. She broke from the track and plunged deeper into the forest, her feet pounding the earth. Twigs snapped and dry leaves crackled underfoot. She heard the Hag screaming again, ‘After it, Brúid! That way!’ The sounds of pursuit grew louder, closer. Her breath caught in her throat; her lungs burned. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Her legs ached. Desperately she ran.
Ahead, something glittered through the trees like a silver ribbon. A stream. Running water. A vague memory came to Bansi. There was something, some mythical creature, that couldn’t cross running water. What was it? Vampires? Witches? Fairies? Recklessly she raced towards it, ploughing through bracken, through brambles that tore at her feet. She dodged and darted frantically around branches that clawed and snatched as she passed. The stream grew nearer. So did her pursuer. She dared not look round; her imagination filled with horrors at the thought of what might be chasing her.
The stream was fast, wide, but shallow. Water fractured dazzlingly as it splashed up around her feet. She skidded and skittered on the stream-bed pebbles. The ground rose sharply on the other side. Bansi leaned forward instinctively, not letting her pace drop for a moment as she jammed the poker into her belt and began to climb.
She was barely halfway up when she heard the sound she dreaded: the noise of feet splashing heavily across the stream. She clenched her jaw and ran harder, feeling as if her lungs would burst, as if her legs would collapse under her. Something was grunting forcefully and furiously up the slope behind her. She pressed on, forward and upward through the trees, running, scrambling, dodging branches, never looking back, her eyes searching for the summit. The rise grew steeper. On she scrambled, ever upwards. Something stood above her, ahead of her, through the trees: a high, rocky ridge. It gave her a target, something to aim for; she pushed herself onwards. Her breath scorched her throat. Her legs burned. Still she ran.
And then she realized that the rocky ridge at the top was sheer and high. Too high to climb.
She almost gave in then, almost crumpled and fell; but a voice in her head said, No! and she fought her despair and kept clambering. The grunting behind her fell a little more distant, as though her pursuer was unused to such terrain, and this gave her heart. She altered her course, stumbling against thick tree trunks, skidding on dead leaves, urgent fear propelling her towards the top. The ridge rose above her like a forbidding wall, the trees its sentries.
But the trees could be allies as well as enemies. With a strength fuelled by terror, she hauled herself into the lowest branches of one that stood by the ridge and began to ascend. Her limbs throbbed and burned stiffly, but she did not surrender to the pain and exhaustion. Up through the thick branches she climbed, until she reached one which overhung the rocky shelf. Only then did she pause, breathing hard through fiery lungs and throat, and look down to see the thing that pursued her.
It was a huge man: tall and stocky, long-limbed and muscular, barrel-chested, with broad, strong shoulders on which sat . . . nothing.
He had no head.
Two huge, repulsive, scaly eyes swivelled in the hollows above his collarbones, independently pivoting, searching, until first one and then the other fixed on her. He leaned back, staring, and Bansi saw with a shudder of revulsion that in the centre of his naked, hairy stomach sat a slobbering mouth full of jagged teeth.
‘Meat!’ he grunted. ‘Come down, meat! Come down!’ He wrapped his great arms around the trunk and heaved.
Bansi clung tight, terrified the monster would shake her from the tree or even uproot it altogether; but the brute had overestimated himself. The huge plant stood firm. The monster let go and began to pace angrily.
‘Come down, meat!’ he growled again, fat droplets of saliva slobbering from his wet red mouth. ‘Brúid wants you! Brúid is hungry! Annis is hungry! Come down!’
Bansi, panting hard and fast, clutched the trunk as if it was a lifebelt and tried to ignore the ravings of the monster as he raged and stormed below. Clearly, he was unable or unwilling to climb.
She felt a desperate urge to sit, to rest her weary legs; but she knew that if she did so, she might be unable to persuade herself to her feet again. She stood on the branch, holding the tree trunk, and waited until her gasping subsided. When she felt able once more to move, she knelt and, trembling, began to make her way carefully along the sturdy limb.
All this time, Brúid had been watching her with his great scaly rolling eyes. Seeing what she was doing, he set up a renewed howling. ‘No! Bad meat! Bad meat! Come down!Not go away!’ With fury he began to kick the tree and strike it with his balled fists, but to no avail.
Bansi continued to edge cautiously along the branch, until she reached the place where it hung over the top of the ridge. It was a short drop to safe ground.
Chapter Sixteen
Bansi could still hear Brúid howling his frustration as she made her way down the slope on the other side of the hill. The trees were sparser here for some reason, and the going was easier. Of course, not being chased by a hungry flesh-eating monster helped, too. But Bansi was cautious now, and kept her poker drawn and ready, just in case.
She had got her breath back by this time, and was determined to put as much distance between herself and Brúid as possible. She kept moving in a straight line away from the ridge, trying not to dwell on the impossibility of the tasks ahead of her: to find Pogo and Tam, and rescue her parents.
She had been walking for some time – an hour or more – when it occurred to her that something was different about this part of the forest. She stopped, puzzled, and looked around; but whatever it was, she couldn’t quite work it out. The trees were, as far as she could tell, much the same; so were the ferns and grasses of the forest floor; the birdsong and other animal noises from near and far were still there . . .
It was as she was entering a picturesque glade, with a bright rippling brook running through it, that she realized what it was.
Everything looked clean and unnaturally tidy. No dried, fallen leaves littered the ground. No broken plants, trampled by animals, could be seen. Even the lichen and fungus that grew on and around the trees looked somehow arranged and orderly.
And as she realized this, Bansi began to feel as if something was watching her. She turned slowly, casually, as if regarding the clearing, but her eyes flicked from side to side, looking for signs of life.
She caught a sudden movement, low down, out of the corner of her eye; a flash of brown in her peripheral
vision. She spun round, glimpsed something ducking for cover. Something small and, she was sure, man-shaped. Something that could easily have been . . .
‘Pogo?’ she called hesitantly. ‘Pogo, is that you?’
The clearing somehow seemed to fall still for a moment. There was a rustling sound in the bushes, and a noise that sounded like dozens of small voices muttering to each other. She thought she heard the words, ‘Pogo! She knows Pogo!’
Suddenly, the glade was full of brownies. For what seemed like a full minute they stared at her, brown eyes wide and full of reverence. Finally, one stepped forward, cleared his little throat, and asked hesitantly, ‘Are – are you the girl he went to find?’
The silence was broken. Bansi was deluged without warning; submerged by an avalanche of excited questions that rolled unstoppably from the eager mouths of the little people.
‘Where is he?’
‘Why are you alone?’
‘Are you going to help us?’
‘How did you get here?’
On and on the tide of questions rolled, most of them lost in the swell of chatter, until finally one of them – a little woman in a tattered tunic, her face almost as wrinkled as Pogo’s – stepped forward, turned to face her tribe, and held her hands up. Immediately there was silence.
‘Give the child a moment to speak!’ she cried. Then, turning to Bansi with a movement that could have been either a stumble or a clumsy half-curtsey, she said, ‘Our pardon. But please, tell us – are you the child of the Blood of the Morning Stars?’
Bansi wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘Well – I suppose so,’ she began. ‘I mean – Pogo says I am . . .’ She got no further before the entire brownie gathering, as one, dropped to one knee – all but the woman who had spoken, who performed her clumsy curtsey once more.
‘Then you are most welcome,’ the little woman continued, ‘and we ask that you would tell us your story, and bring us news of our kinsman Pogo.’
At this the little people sat cross-legged and looked at Bansi so politely and expectantly that she felt she had little choice but to begin. As quickly as she could, she told the brownies of the night’s events, beginning with the wolf’s sudden and violent appearance.
The brownies listened respectfully and attentively, murmuring their approval each time Pogo was mentioned and muttering dark displeasure at the actions of first the wolf and then the Hag. But at the mention of Brúid, a sudden hubbub arose among her listeners and two or three rose to their feet in panic.
The little woman gestured for silence. After a moment, Bansi continued haltingly, not sure what to make of their reaction; but as she told of how she had made her escape from the monster there was uproar, sudden and overwhelming. Seized by panic, the brownies leaped to their feet and darted pell-mell into the undergrowth. In an instant, no one was left but Bansi and the small brown woman.
‘You must go,’ the woman said urgently. ‘You must leave us now.’ Seeing the confusion on Bansi’s face, she explained hurriedly. ‘The monster you encountered – the Brúid creature – it does not give up. Not once it has seen the face of its prey. It will be here soon.’
Bansi felt her heart collapse in despair. ‘But – it couldn’t climb the ridge! How will it find me?’
‘It will find a way. The ridge does not go on for ever. And if it finds you here, we are not safe. You must go!’
‘Go where?’ Bansi blinked angrily against the prickle of despairing tears.
The little woman regarded her sorrowfully for a second. Then, without warning, she grabbed hold of the seam of Bansi’s jeans and scurried up her body to rest on her shoulder.
‘You’re but a child,’ she said sadly. ‘More than this I can’t do, but I will see you safely to the borders of our roaming-ground. There are many dangers in Tir na n’Óg, and some of those are worse still than the beast which pursues you. I cannot keep you safe from Brúid, but perhaps I may help you stay alive for long enough to aid your parents. This way! Go!’
Bansi took a deep breath, straightened her back, and began to walk.
Chapter Seventeen
‘You may call me Moina,’ the brownie woman told Bansi, after they had travelled some distance in silence.
Bansi said nothing.
‘Please,’ Moina went on, ‘you mustn’t blame my people. We are small, and powerless. There is nothing any of us can do against the great forces of this land.’
‘Pogo doesn’t think so,’ Bansi answered sharply.
‘Pogo is brave,’ Moina said. ‘But bravery isn’t enough.’
‘Nor is cowardice.’
Moina sighed. ‘Pogo has gone to stand against the Dark Sidhe,’ she said, ‘but they are strong. They have great magic where we have none. What chance have we against them?’
‘Every chance! Good grief, Moina, you can touch iron! You can use it as a weapon!’ Even as she said it, Bansi could feel her passenger stiffening with tension.
‘No faery ever wields iron against another!’
‘Why not?’
‘The laws forbid it!’
‘And who makes the laws? I mean, I bet they’d use their magic against you!’
‘Why wouldn’t they? Magic is an honourable weapon!’
‘And iron isn’t?’
Moina looked shocked at the idea. ‘Of course not! Using iron is a mortal trick!’
‘So what you’re saying is: they make the rules, and they’ve decided their weapons are OK, but yours aren’t, and you just go along with that. And then you complain about being powerless. That’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it?’
Moina glowered. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘You’re right. I don’t understand why you’d let someone else make up a silly rule that means they get to win without even trying.’
Moina’s scowl deepened, so that for a moment she looked extraordinarily like Pogo. Then, with an effort, she smiled weakly. ‘Let’s not argue,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid you may not have much time left.’
‘Leaving aside how tactless that remark was,’ Bansi told her firmly, ‘perhaps you’re wrong. You could fight the Dark Sidhe with iron; you just choose not to. Maybe I’ve got more hope against Brúid than you imagine.’
Moina shook her head, glumly but silently.
On Bansi trudged. The sun continued its long journey across the sky. They came to another forest stream and followed it. The wood began to thin out. Soon, they came to the top of a grassy slope where the trees were so sparse, it was clear they were at the forest’s edge.
‘I must leave you here,’ Moina said sadly. ‘Goodbye, child. You are brave.’ She leaned over and brushed Bansi’s cheek gently with her wrinkled lips; then she scrambled down from the girl’s shoulder. Raising her tiny hand, she pointed in the direction of a distant hill. ‘That way lies the Court of the Dark Sidhe. You may find your parents there. Whether at the hands of the Brúid creature or the Dark Lord, I wish you a sudden and painless end.’
‘I know you mean well,’ Bansi answered, sounding more courageous than she felt, ‘but I’m not going to give up and lie down. I don’t intend to die today, Moina.’ She knelt down and looked the little brownie in the eyes. ‘Fight back against the Dark Sidhe,’ she said. ‘Don’t let them bully you. Don’t let them have it all their way.’
Moina made no answer, but raised one tiny hand in farewell.
Bansi set off down the slope. At the bottom, she turned to wave once more.
Something felt wrong. Everything looked just as it should, but one of her senses was giving off uneasy signals.
It took her a moment to realize it was her sense of hearing. As they’d walked through the woods, there had been constant birdsong. Now – nothing. No noise. It was too quiet, as if something had disturbed the wildlife, scared it into silence.
The hillside paused. Nothing moved. Time stood still.
Suddenly a bird broke cover, frightened by movement. Bansi shook herself, foreboding filling her. A shape burst from the woods: the shape of a ta
ll, muscular man.
A man with no head.
‘Moina!’ Bansi yelled. ‘Look out!’
Moina needed no warning. She had already turned; seen the creature bearing down on her. She leaped for cover. Brúid ignored her. His hideous scaly eyes were fixed on Bansi. With a horrible slobbering cry of triumph he broke into a run, hurtling down the slope towards her. She looked around; there was no escape. No low branches; nothing to climb. Nowhere to run.
The world grew small. The monster filled her vision; the only sounds she could hear were the thundering of his feet and the rasping of his breath. Now she could smell him: a stale, acrid stench that filled her nostrils.
Bansi O’Hara raised the poker and prepared to die.
Brúid slowed. He stopped.
‘Hurrh!’ rumbled the dreadful mouth, the stomach around it rippling gruesomely. ‘Meat run. Brúid run faster. Good game. Run now, meat. Run!’ The teeth were exposed in a frightful parody of a smile. The creature took a single step closer; and then another. ‘Run!’ he demanded.
As the monster lurched towards her, another sound began to intrude upon the narrow world of Bansi’s perceptions. Slowly it grew, forcing itself into her consciousness.
It sounded like screaming.
Familiar voices, screaming.
And the roaring of an engine.
Behind Brúid, just uphill, a shadow appeared. It bloomed, blossomed into a familiar shape. Bansi’s eyes widened in disbelief. She threw herself sideways. The monster laughed.
‘Ha! Run, meat! Brúid catch you!’ he taunted. ‘Oomph!’ he added as a dark green Morris Minor Traveller, rolling madly side over side, caught him square in the back. It bowled him over, ran him down, pressed him hard into the earth.
On the car tumbled until with a final bounce it came to rest, by some miracle the right way up, at the foot of the slope.
Bansi stared for a moment, heart in mouth. Hesitantly she made her way towards the Morris Minor, half afraid of what she might find inside.
Bansi O'Hara and the Bloodline Prophecy Page 10
