‘Why?’
‘I was afraid that Cialtie would make a big spectacle of killing you. Maybe even a public execution. I couldn’t have that. I wanted to kill you privately and cleanly.’
‘Gee, thanks – I think.’ I smiled at her but she did not return it. ‘I took no joy in that task,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. I put my hand on her arm, and then I changed the subject. ‘So Cialtie sent riders to look for me and Dad even before last summer?’
‘My information is that he was looking for years.’
‘Where did you get your information from?’
Nieve smiled. ‘Cialtie is not the only one with spies.’
That night I put it to Brendan that maybe his daughter really did see a rider dressed in black and that maybe they really did appear out of nowhere, but he got angry with me for even suggesting such nonsense and wouldn’t speak about it.
Later I was awoken by rustling in the forest. Something was moving out there and it was something big. The fire was almost out so I walked up to a nearby tree to ask for wood.
An ancient voice appeared in my head. ‘You are not Pooka.’
‘No, sir,’ I said aloud. ‘We seek the Pooka.’
‘There is Pooka in the forest tonight,’ he said.
‘Have you spoken to them?’
‘The Pooka no longer speak to me – I am alone.’
I felt so sorry for the old guy. I said, ‘I can take a message to a tree for you. Just don’t give me more than one – I can’t handle it.’ I shut my eyes expecting an onslaught of messages but none came.
‘What good is one message? The Pooka have renounced us, we are alone.’
I heard the familiar creaking of the tree sucking the moisture out of some of its limbs. I said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and backed off before he cracked off his branches and dropped them to the ground. I stoked the fire and kept watch. I continued to hear something moving in the gloomy dark but never saw anything.
That changed the next morning. Something was in the woods, on both sides of us, and whatever is was, it was tracking us. At noon Araf said he saw a wolf. About an hour later I saw one too. Like seeing a shark’s dorsal fin in the water, seeing a wolf running low in a forest will make your heart go pitter-pat.
The higher we got in the Pinelands, the more the trees thinned and we got a better look at our escorts. It was a pack about ten strong. They shadowed us with military precision – four on each side and two slipping close in at our rear. If we turned in our saddles to look, the two that followed would slip back into the trees and wait patiently until our eyes turned ahead whthey would slink back into position. It was unnerving. Essa said she thought the Pooka headquarters was over the rise. I bit my tongue before saying, ‘You think?’ This crowd was too tense for teasing and I knew from experience that annoying a stressed Essa was a dangerous thing.
The closer we got to the summit the bolder the wolves got. They moved in closer and no longer attempted to conceal themselves among the few remaining trees. These guys were big – Great-Dane sized – but they looked thin and just a little bit mangy. If you caught their eye it gave you a feeling that they were unpredictable – capable of anything.
Our mounts definitely didn’t like them. Horses, I have learned, are travelling machines. They focus on the minutiae of the terrain ahead and because of that almost never put a foot wrong. What they don’t do well is worry about what is behind them. It pulls their focus. Acorn periodically tried to look behind and every time he did I looked as well. A couple of times I almost fell off.
An explosion of gold light erupted behind me that nearly made me jump out of my skin. The wolves yelped and I saw one dart into the forest with his fur shooting straight out in all directions. Brendan notched an arrow.
‘Put away your bow, archer. They are Pookas.’
‘What did you do?’ I asked my aunt.
‘I didn’t harm anyone but they were getting a bit too close for my horse’s liking. Now they have a better idea of who they are dealing with.’
The wolves gave us a wider berth but it didn’t last. They slipped in closer, zigzagging behind us, sometimes so close that our horses tried to kick them. Not the kind of thing you want your mount to do unexpectedly.
Essa pointed to a rock formation not too far off to the left. ‘That is where I was greeted by Queen Rhiannon the last time I was here.’
Nieve blasted the Pineland wolves again. Any sane creatures would have scampered away with their tails between their legs but I wasn’t too sure that these creatures were sane.
Now that we were closer to the rock wall I still couldn’t decide if it was Pooka-made or natural. The wall looked like it could have been a long fault line that had collapsed in an earthquake. In the middle was an archway. Our plan of riding through the opening and fending off the wolves there was dashed when we saw that thick pine branches blocked the entrance from the other side.
‘Nieve,’ Essa shouted from horseback, ‘can you move those trees?’
‘That depends on the trees,’ Nieve shouted back. ‘I may need your help.’
‘Everyone,’ Essa shouted, trying to sound like a seasoned commander but there was a slight quiver in her voice that betrayed a fear that I think we all shared. ‘Dismount quickly and protect the horses while Nieve and I clear the gateway.’
Turlow moved first, he performed a very impressive dismount while in full canter. In midair, even before his feet hit the ground, his Banshee blade rocketed out of his sleeve. It surprised the lead pack wolf to the point that he stumbled as he slowed. Acorn was barely walking when I dismounted, still I almost fell over. We fanned out and put our nervous snorting horses behind us. The wolves fanned too and paced sideways snarling – looking for a weakness in our defences. I couldn’t help thinking that they were looking at me more than the others.
‘Tell me again why I can’t shoot one of them?’ Brendan shouted.
‘Because they are Hawathiee,’ Araf said.
Now there was a word I hadn’t heard before. ‘Hawa what?’ I asked, never taking my eyes off my junkyard dog.
‘We are all Hawathiee: Faeries, Imps, Leprechauns, Fili, Elves, Brownies and Pooka. We are children of the trees. We do not kill each other.’
‘You know I’ve read some of your history,’ I said, ‘and that’s not exactly true.’
‘Well,’ Araf replied a bit sheepishly, ‘we are not supposed to kill each other.’
‘Notice he didn’t mention Banshees in his little list,’ Turlow said.
One of the wolves made a faint attack at Araf which it instantly abandoned. The rest of the pack quickly ran sideways and swopped positions.
‘I do not think that now is the time to debate that, Turlow,’ Araf said.
Turlow’s reply was almost too soft to hear. ‘That’s what they always say.’
I really didn’t like the look of the slobber that was drooling off the lips of one of the wolves in front of me. He had a look of desperation about him and his patience was growing thin.
‘How’s the tree pruning going back there, girls?’ I shouted without turning around.
‘The trees are alive but they will not speak to us,’ Nieve called back. ‘I do not wish to hurt them.’
‘Well, something or someone is going to get hurt real soon,’ Brendan said, ‘and I would prefer it not to be me.’
Turlow broke the calm. With a well and proper Banshee scream, he lashed out at the two beasts that were facing him. They initially stood the charge with bared fangs but as he grew closer and louder they scampered away like poodles being reprimanded by a maid with a broom.
When I looked back to the wolves that were dogging me, I was surprised to see that they had crept in to almost a lunge-length away. I swung the Lawnmower and let loose a scream that sounded weedy compared to Turlow’s. The wolves backed off and then, as one, they all turned and ran away.
I smiled at Araf. ‘Well, I guess I showed them who’s boss.’
Araf didn’t look at me. He seemed to look above me. ‘I can only guess at what boss means,’ he said, ‘but I am guessing that the boss is not you.’
I turned. That’s when I saw the bears.
