The Hound at the Gate (20 page)

“Lochlan,” Finn hissed, then pointed up. “Hurry—I'll guard your back. Go!”

Thrusting his knife back into its sheath, Lochlan began whispering the words to the Song. Then, with a grunt, he jumped for the lowest branch. He hung for a moment, then kicked his legs up into the air, hooked a knee over the branch, and pulled himself up. Yanking his weapon free, he lifted his arm, ready to throw it at the first Amandán who moved. “Come on, Finn! Get your butt up here!” Lochlan reached down for him, stretching his arm as far as he could.

“Move over!”

While Lochlan scrambled up to a higher branch, Finn began chanting the Song. The tingling made his feet feel like they had fallen
asleep and were just now waking up. Still chanting, he took a step back, bent his knees, then launched himself upward and grasped the branch.

Fingers snagged his pant leg. “Got ya!” A goblin chortled below him. “Yer not getting away that easy, whelp.”

Clinging to the limb with both arms, Finn mule-kicked backward with his free foot. His heel struck something with a solid
crunch
. A scream, then the fingers let go. Lochlan reached down and snagged the shoulder of his fleece and yanked him higher.

“That was close,” Lochlan said, face as pale as his hair.

Finn nodded, unable to trust his voice. Taking a position on the other side of the trunk from his friend, he wrapped an arm around the tree and stared out in dismay. A greenish haze hung low over the campsite—Bog-born pollution. Figures flitted in and out of view. Growls and snarls mingled with jeers from the Knights.

“By the Goddess,” Lochlan said. “They must have killed
hundreds
of goblins—”

“Here come more!”

Even as they watched, another pack appeared from the east and disappeared into the miasma. Below them, the goblins grunted at each other, one pointing toward the camp. The majority ran off toward the battle, while a handful remained at the base of the tree.

A hoarse croak yanked Finn's head up. Crows circled above, barely-to-be-seen black Xs in the darkening sky. They spiraled downward, black wings spread wide to embrace the battle.

“Oh, so,
now
you show up.” Lochlan waved a knife at the crows. “Stupid birds.”

As the sound of battle increased, Finn strained to see through the haze. “I wish I could see what was happening.” A faraway shout made him squinted harder.

“Hey! That sounded like Mac Roth!” Lochlan climbed to a higher branch.

We need to get out of this tree
, Finn thought, peering down at the goblins guarding the base.
We could jump past them, but even with the Song I don't know if we can outrun them
. He straightened. The backpack, forgotten on
his back, shifted, almost throwing him off-balance. Something clinked inside of it. Hope flared in his chest.

“Lochlan,” he whispered. He jabbed a thumb at the pack.

“What—oh.” With a wry shake of his head, Lochlan clambered down to a position across from Finn on another branch.

Letting go of the trunk one arm at a time, Finn wiggled out of the pack, then squatted down. Holding it between his knees, he fumbled one-handed with the zipper. “Here.” He passed the first blade to Lochlan.

“Give me two more, then be ready to feed me knives as fast as you can,” Lochlan whispered.

Finn nodded.
I wonder how good he really is. Mac Roth said he was one of the best—

His jaw sagged when the first Amandán blew apart beneath him. Two more followed so fast that the ash from the first was still falling to the ground when they exploded. The other goblins snarled and sputtered, whirling around and around, trying to spot where the attack was coming from.

“Finn! Quick—before they figure out what's going on!” Lochlan hissed.

Shoving his hand into the pack, Finn grabbed the rest of the blades, then held them out, handles first.

It rained bronze.

Standing with one arm hooked around the trunk, Lochlan threw knife after knife, pausing only to sight or snatch another one from Finn. Eight goblins. Eight throws. Eight kills.

Vapor, a nasty greenish-white, like the belly of a frog, drifted along the ground below them. The stink of goblin filled the air.

“Whoa,” Finn breathed. He looked down at the piles of ash, then up at his friend. “You are crazy good!”

Lochlan shrugged, trying to act nonchalant but failing entirely. “Thanks.” He beamed.

Still shaking his head in disbelief, Finn peered westward, watching the sun sink behind the mountains. “It sounds like the battle's moving toward the field. Let's go.”

Chanting the Song, they dropped to the ground. They paused, heads swiveling as they peered through the slowly clearing haze, both grimacing from the stench.

Lochlan gagged a few times. “Does it get any better?” His voice sounded like he was speaking around a mouthful of pudding.

“Not really. But you get used to it.”
Sort of
.

After grabbing the weapons that lay half-buried in ash, they wiped them clean, then loaded them back in the pack, keeping out two apiece. Crouched low, they snuck back through the brush to the campsite.

Tents were torn or lying in crumpled heaps. Folding chairs, iceboxes, and supplies lay scattered everywhere. Mound after mound, with wisps of goblin dust drifting from their tops, dotted the area like miniature volcanoes. Finn stopped counting after sixteen.

Stealing between the remaining tents, they froze at the sight of a figure lying on the ground a few yards away. Piles of scattered greenish-gray powder, disturbed by footprints, surrounded him.

“That's…” Lochlan's voice cracked. “That's…Knight O'Donnell.”

Finn stared at the body. The image of Dennis O'Donnell's cheerful face at the end of the hurling match seared his mind. Sudden dread socked him in the gut.
What if Gideon is—
“Stop it,” he hissed to himself.
He's not dead. He's
Gideon,
for the Goddess's sake!

“O'Donnell is—
was
—one of the best,” Lochlan said. “That's what Mac Roth told me. That's why he was the Hound this year, so how—”

Shut up
.

“—so, how can a Knight like
him
be dead?”

“Shut up!” Fighting the urge to punch Lochlan in the mouth, Finn walked away. Giving the body a wide berth, he continued toward the barn. After a moment, he heard Lochlan hurrying up behind him.

Shadows deepened as they slunk through the battered camp. Howls and snarls of angry Bog-born grew louder with each step.
Reaching the tree line, they squatted down behind some undergrowth and peered across the meadow.

“Ye gods,” Finn breathed.

Amandán surrounded the barn, lumpy shapes in the growing dark. Now and again, a goblin's eyes would glow green, like a cat's, when it caught the lantern light filtering through cracks in the barn walls. Finn shifted to one side, trying to see better.

“Do you think they all made it inside?” Lochlan asked.

Not all
, Finn thought, thinking back to the dead Knight behind them. “I don't know—I hope so.”

They jumped when a group of goblins launched themselves at the barn door with a resounding
whumph
. The door bucked and shuddered on its hinges, but held. Goblins growled in frustration.

“Lochlan, look!” He pointed toward the river.

Shuffling along on all fours, more Amandán were crossing the bridge. Reaching the near side, they broke into a gallop across the field. Hoots greeted them as they joined the others laying siege to the barn. While one group launched another assault on the door, a second group circled around the back.

“They're going for the back door.” Finn rose to a half-standing position. “We've got to warn the Knights!”

“How?”

“I don't know. Yell or something.”

“The Amandán will hear us.” Lochlan pulled Finn back down. “And while I'm all for the hero stuff, I would rather it be
live hero
stuff and not
dead hero
stuff.”

“We can't just sit. We've got to do something to—”

With a shout, the doors were flung open. Figures poured out. Lantern light flashed along bronze blades. Slashing and stabbing while Mac Roth's bellowing voice led them in a chorus of the Song, a group of Knights drove the goblins back.

Finn's spirits soared at the sight of a familiar figure. Wielding a weapon in each hand, Gideon plunged into the enemy, his blades a
blur as he stabbed left and right, never pausing long enough for black-tipped fingers to touch him.

Next to him, Mac Roth plowed along, a living battering ram armed with a hatchet. Beyond the giant, Kel O'Shea fired her bow as fast as she could load it, while Toryn Mull swung his sword in a two-handed grip. The other Knights fought behind them.

Astonished by the fierce counterattack, the Amandán turned tail and ran for the bridge, yelping in panic. Suddenly, the dusk seemed brighter. Or at least, less dark.

“Now!”

Finn grabbed Lochlan's arm and yanked him to his feet. Side by side, they tore across the field. Gasping the lines from the Song in between gulps of breath, Finn willed his legs to
run faster, boyos
.

It wasn't fast enough.

To his dismay, the Knights backed toward the barn. Even as he and Lochlan sped up in desperation, the warriors began disappearing inside the building. Only two remained.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Finn saw the Amandán pausing by the bridge. One of them pointed at the boys and hooted a warning. With a scream, four of them broke away from the main pack and came galloping back across the field, seemingly determined to intercept the apprentices before they could reach sanctuary.

We're not going to make it
, he thought.
They're going to catch us out here in the open. They're going to catch us and…and…

The next moment, Lochlan tripped and landed with an
oof
on the grass. One knife flew out of his hand.

“Lochlan!” Finn skidded to a stop. Whirling around, he raced back to his friend and hauled him to his feet. Breathless from the fall, Lochlan clung to him for a moment, wheezing for air. Feet thundered toward them.

This is it
. Finn gulped. Almost afraid to look, he forced himself to turn around. To face the enemy like a Knight of the Tuatha De Danaan—with a weapon in his hand and the Song on his lips.

Just as Gideon would have.

Chanting in rhythm with his thundering pulse, Finn swiped the sweat and muck from his eyes with the back of one hand. Steeling himself, he raised both chin and weapon at the approaching figure. Then all his muscles went limp.

It was Gideon.

With a shout, his master slammed into the first pair of goblins. A flash of bronze. Then the beasts exploded at the same time. Further back, Mac Roth beheaded the other two with a double-handed swing of his hatchet. Before Finn could move, Gideon grabbed his arm, practically lifting him off his feet, and flung him toward the barn.

“Run, Finn!”

Sprinting alongside his master, he panted the Song, trying to keep up. He seemed to twist an ankle or stub a toe on every rock and tuft of grass. His lungs burned. Desperate for breath, he gave up singing and just tried to concentrate on not falling on his face. When he noticed Gideon slowing to match his stride, he forced his legs to churn faster, running now for
both
their lives. Mac Roth and Lochlan pounded along behind, the giant shouting at his apprentice to move his arse. It seemed that the barn drew further and further away.

Finn almost stopped in disbelief when they reached the entrance three strides ahead of the foremost Amandán. A rough shove from his master propelled him between the closing doors. Lochlan followed. The Knights squeezed through after him. With a
crash
, the doors slammed together on Mac Roth's heels, taking a few goblin fingers off as well. The amputated digits blew up like popcorn, then turned to dust.

Deciding his legs deserved a break, Finn sank to his knees, unable to do more than wheeze. Thankfulness at simply being alive, at his master and friends being alive, made him want to kiss the ground in gratitude. He wiped his face, surprised at the trembling of his hands.
Guess I'm not the only one
.

Next to him, Lochlan sat slumped over, his fair hair darkened with sweat, shaking just as hard. As Finn watched, Mac Roth reached down and patted his apprentice on the back, then bent closer to murmur something. Lochlan nodded, face still buried in his knees.

Around them, Knights and apprentices hurried to and fro, busy with defense, voices shouting and answering. The wail of babies mingled with the
clank
of weapons being drawn.

Finn blinked when Gideon took his elbow and hauled him upright. Still holding him, the Knight looked him up and down, stern face made sterner by either displeasure or fear, Finn wasn't sure which.