‘I say we’re proud to have you at our side, Lugh.’ Hunter’s attention was caught by Laura sitting against a wall.
‘Keep your eyes on the battle,’ she snapped. ‘I can look after myself.’
Though he couldn’t be sure, it appeared to Hunter that where her stump had been, something was growing.
Mallory was suddenly at his side. ‘This is madness. We’ve barely made a dent in the Lament-Brood and that big bastard is still waiting there, untouched. If he’s directing them, we should try to take him out.’
‘I agree,’ Hunter said. ‘But how do you propose we get through that lot?’
The next wave of Lament-Brood reached them a second later. The defenders fought furiously, but their numbers were too few. They were driven back and back, until they were pressed against the ancient brick walls. Hunter knew the signs: they were minutes from being overrun.
Another of the Tuatha De Danann fell, and then another, as Hunter yelled, ‘We can’t hold the position! Get inside the building and barricade the doors!’
But they were already too hemmed in to escape to the Divinity School’s entrance. While striking out with his sword, Lugh turned to Hunter and said, ‘Get set, Brother of Dragons. The Golden Ones will buy you time.’
Hunter knew what he meant, and felt a wave of sadness wash over him. But there was no time to consider it or even to acknowledge Lugh’s final act of sacrifice. While Hunter fought for his life against two of the Lament- Brood, Lugh drove forward with his remaining men, apparently towards the King of Insects. The Lament-Brood instantly turned all their attention on the gods.
Lugh led his men into the heart of the surging mass. There was no possible escape; blows were raining in from every side.
With Caitlin fighting a frenzied rearguard action, Hunter led Mallory and Laura through the open door of the Divinity School. Once inside, Hunter turned to look back. Golden moths were glowing amongst the snowflakes.
But Lugh fought on alone, not relenting in his determination to repel the attackers, until there was a bright flash like the sun coming up on a glorious day. When the light cleared, he was gone.
Chapter Eighteen
‘ The next greatest misfortune to losing a battle is to gain such a victory as this.’
Hal refused to give in to despair. While the cries of the supernatural beings that filled the cells around him grew more frenzied with each passing hour, he had reached a Zen-like state where he had just about managed to prevent the guilt and the powerlessness from eating away at him. All his hope was placed in Hunter and the others. They would discover where he was, and then overcome all odds to free him. That was the kind of thing the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons did.
The door swung open and two armed guards stood there. ‘It’s time, traitor,’ one of them said with an underlying note of contempt. ‘We’re to take you to your place of execution.’
The hammering at the doors sounded like the end of the world. Deafening echoes reverberated so loudly throughout the Divinity School that Mallory had to yell to be heard above the din.
‘What’s the point of this?’ he shouted. ‘All we’re gaining is a few more minutes. Sooner or later they’re going to break in and this place will be a slaughter house.’
Hunter remained unaccountably calm. Though the others couldn’t see the signs in his face, Lugh’s sacrifice had affected him deeply — a higher being giving up its existence for a lesser life form; it brought sharply into relief the responsibilities that he had already accepted.
‘We’re not giving up,’ he said calmly.
The Divinity School was a long hall with a flagged stone floor and rows of tall windows on opposing walls that flooded the place with sunlight during the day. Overhead, a carved, vaulted ceiling added to the atmosphere of majesty, which coexisted uncomfortably with the chaotic sound of the Lament-Brood attempting to smash down the doors with their weapons and fists.
A group of around forty people cowered in one corner of the room. Thackeray and Harvey were doing their best to calm them, and were looked upon with a touch of awe, as if they were emissaries between the heroic, almost god-like defenders and the ordinary people.
Hunter observed them and felt a touch of humility at the task that had been presented to him. For the first time in his life he was in a fight that felt completely just, where death was not simply a matter of political expediency. ‘There’s a second storey housing the library,’ he said. ‘Let’s get up there. And bring Ceridwen.’
As they crossed the floor, Thackeray grabbed Caitlin. ‘You’re not going out there, surely?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I’ve got a big responsibility invested in me, Thackeray. I can’t turn away from it.’
A huge weight of emotion lay behind his quiet sigh. ‘I followed you from this world to T’ir n’a n’Og, put my life on the line… bloody hell, put Harvey’s life on the line, which he’ll never let me forget. You’re a very special person, Caitlin. I’ve never met…’ His words faltered. ‘Look, I’m a soft old romantic and I don’t want you holding that against me. I just wanted to say that I love you. I’ve never loved anybody the way I love you.’ He let out another sigh. ‘There. No going back now.’
Caitlin leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘I know.’ She smiled, turned to leave, then paused. When she looked back, her eyes were bright and free of the Morrigan’s coldness. ‘I love you, too, Thackeray. And given time… when my husband’s death isn’t so raw
… I’m sure that love would grow. I know it would.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he said with faux-lightness. ‘Then you’d better make sure we get the time together that we need.’
His eyes never left her as she joined the others and then disappeared in search of the stairs. Even then, he concentrated on the ghost-image she had left in his mind, until Harvey urged him to return to help the frightened group of survivors.
From the first-floor window, Mallory and Hunter looked out on a street where purple mist almost obscured the packed bodies of the Lament-Brood pressing against the Divinity School. The sheer weight of their bodies would soon break down the doors. Further along, the King of Insects rose up above the seething mass. Whatever power lay within it disrupted Mallory and Hunter’s thoughts with mind-images of a world swarming with nothing but cockroaches.
‘We’re mad, aren’t we?’ Mallory said quietly.
‘Not mad,’ Hunter replied. ‘We simply don’t have a choice. This is what we do.’ Hunter glanced at Mallory, reading his secret thoughts easily. ‘She’ll be all right.’
‘I’m glad you’re so confident.’
‘She’s as tough as us and probably significantly smarter. She’ll be hiding out somewhere.’
Mallory nodded, but didn’t meet Hunter’s eye. Caitlin led Ceridwen up to the window; the goddess was broken, barely able to cope with the devastation that had been inflicted on her people.
‘We need your help,’ Hunter said bluntly. ‘There aren’t many of your kind left out there, but we need the ones that are. Specifically, we need the Wild Hunt. Can you contact them?’
Dazed, Ceridwen nodded slowly. Hunter explained to her exactly what he required, then sent her off to perform whatever ritual she needed to carry out to reach the Hunt.
Before she left, she paused and turned back. ‘Watch the dogs carefully,’ she said.
‘The Hunt’s dogs? Those weird red and white things?’ Mallory said.
‘Your kind used to call them the Hounds of Annwn, but they are also known as the Hounds of Avalon. Though they appear as hunting dogs to you, that is not what they are. Like many things from the Far Lands, your limited
