beacon of hope in the night. Whatever the cost.'
'Plain English,' Veitch interjected. 'To overthrow the bastards or die trying.'
Ruth raised her eyes and muttered, 'Thank you, John Wayne.'
They all fell silent for a long moment, and it was Laura who gave voice to the thought on all their minds. 'Look at us. What can we do?'
'I can give you all the cliches,' Church began. 'David and Goliath. The ant that moved several times its own weight-'
'Okay.' Laura smiled falsely. 'Now let's talk about the real world.'
'There's some way out there,' Veitch said adamantly. 'We don't have to go out in a blaze of glory like the Wild Bunch. There's guerrilla warfare. There's-'
'— different rules now,' Church said. 'Powers out there we can use. Like the artefacts we uncovered.' He still felt troubled that objects of such great power were in the hands of such an unpredictable race as the Tuatha De Danann.
'Guerrilla warfare,' Ruth said. 'I like that. We turn our weakness into a strength. Move fast, strike hard and be away before they can respond.'
'Excuse me? Are we living in the same world?' Laura said. 'These are things that can crush us faster than you can get on a high horse.'
'Get a spine.' Ruth turned to the others. 'We all know what's going to happen next.'
Every head dropped as one.
'Somebody's got to say it-'
'Let's not, and say we did.' Laura tried to make out it was more sour humour, but they all heard the faint undertone in her voice: fear.
Ruth looked around the circle slowly. 'They're going to try to bring Balor back. If we don't try to stop them-'
'Why us?' Laura no longer made any pretence of humour.
'But that is why we have been brought together,' Shavi said quietly. 'That is the reason why we contain this nebulous thing called the Pendragon Spirit, this thing that none of us truly understands. But it has been gifted to us so we can defend the land against this overwhelming threat.'
Laura winced. 'If you can believe all that-'
'You don't believe it?' Veitch asked sharply.
'You know what? I don't feel any different to before I met all you. You're just fooling yourselves, playing at being heroes. We're normal. Some of us, worse than normal. Weak, pathetic little shits. And the only time you're going to realise what a fantasy it is, is that second before you die in a gutter.' Her features were flinty; it was obvious she wasn't going to back down.
There was a long period of silence filled only with the crackle of the fire. Then Tom began slowly, 'It is all right to be scared of Balor. This is not some Fomorii like Calatin or Mollecht, who are frightening, but within our power to beat. As the Fomorii are to us, so Balor is to the Fomorii. He is their god, the embodiment of darkness, evil, death, chaos…' He shook his head slowly. 'He is more than a force of nature, he is an abstract given form: destruction. You only have my word for this, but I can see from your faces your fear goes beyond what I say. Because you know. In the furthest reaches of your worst nightmare, in the dimmest purview of your race memory, in your primal fear of the night, he lives. If Balor returns, it truly will be the end of everything.'
No one spoke. They listened to the wind whistling across the hills of Skye and somehow it seemed harsher, colder, the night too dark.
'Then we really do have no choice,' Church said.
Laura turned away so the fire didn't light her face.
'How are they going to bring him back?' Ruth asked finally.
'None of those ancient races truly die,' Tom said. 'They flitter out of this existence for a while. Time is meaningless, space insignificant. They simply need to be anchored and dragged back.' He shrugged. 'How? I have no idea. Some ritual using the powerful distillation they have been amassing which we saw in Salisbury and under Dartmoor.'
'Then we've got to stop the bastards before they start the ritual.' There was an innocent optimism in Veitch's voice that raised all their spirits slightly.
'But where will they be doing it? And when?' Ruth asked.
'The when I can answer,' Tom said. 'The ritual of birthing will not be conducted until the next auspicious date when there is a conjunction of power and intent. What the Celts named the feast of Lughnasadh, the Harvest Festival. August 1.'
'Three months.' Church mulled over this for a second or two. 'Doesn't seem very long. But we managed the unthinkable by our last deadline-'
'With no time to spare,' Tom cautioned. 'This task is far, far harder. The essence of Balor will already be contained in the birthing medium, ready for the ritual, and the Fomorii will have it hidden in their deepest, most inaccessible stronghold. To them, this thing is more valuable than anything in existence. Imagine if you held the spirit of your God? How much would you fight to protect it?'
'Do you think they've got it at that fortress we saw them building in the Lake District?' Ruth asked.
Tom shook his head. 'It will be somewhere none of their enemies will have seen, beneath ground, certainly, and protected against all eventuality.'
The wind came howling down from Sgurr Alasdair high in the Cuillin Hills, whipping up the fire so the sparks roared skywards like shooting stars. Looking up into the vast arc of the heavens, they felt suddenly insignificant, all their plans hopeless.
'Then how are we going to find it?' Ruth asked. 'If they've gone to such great pains to make it safe for them, we're not just going to stumble across it.'
Tom nodded in agreement; slowly, thoughtfully. 'We need guidance. There is a place we could go, a ritual I could conduct-'
'Then let's do it as soon as possible.' Church looked around at their faces; they were watching him with such intensity it made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't want the responsibility they were forcing on his shoulders.
'So you've decided, then.' Laura's expression hid whatever she was thinking. 'We've been lucky so far.' Her hand went unconsciously to the scars on her face. 'If you can call barely surviving luck. But sooner or later someone's going to die, and I don't intend it to be me.'
'No one wants-' But she had risen and marched off into the night before Church had a chance to finish. He sighed and waved his hand dismissively. 'We better get some sleep. We can start at first light.'
Veitch and Shavi headed off to their tents while Tom lit a joint from his rapidly diminishing block of hash and wandered off beyond the light of the campfire.
Ruth sat down next to Church, slipping a tentative arm around his shoulders to give him a comforting squeeze. 'No rest for the wicked.'
'No rest for anyone.' Church sighed. 'I wish I had some Sinatra to play. He always makes me feel good at a time like this.' Overhead a meteor shower set pinpricks of light flashing in the black gulf. 'You remember when we sat in that cafe after we first got dragged into all this under Albert Bridge? You asked me if I was scared. I didn't even know what the word meant then. Now every morning when I wake up, it hits me from a hundred different directions: fear of screwing up again, fear of dying, fear that the world doesn't make sense any more, that there's no secure place anywhere.' He paused a second before continuing, 'Fear of what this nightmare means on some kind of spiritual level. That there is no meaning. That we're just here as prey for whatever things are higher up the food chain than us. Fear that the whole mess doesn't even end with death.'
'You think too much.' Ruth gave him another squeeze before removing her arm. 'That morning in the cafe? It seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it? I barely knew you then.'
Church looked up, unable to pinpoint the tone in her voice. She was smiling, her eyes bright in the dying firelight.
'I think you should look for meaning in the small picture, not the big one,' she continued. 'It seems stupid with all the upset and suffering, but on that micro level my life is better now than it ever was before. I was in a job I hated, just going through the motions because I knew it would have made my dad happy, not really having any idea who I was at all. Now everything in my life seems heightened, somehow. Even the smallest thing has passion
