The Raven Queen (10 page)

‘See, that's the key word right there, isn't it?' said Maddy. ‘You're happy to fight “over” us, not “for” us or “with” us.'

Fachtna sneered. ‘You're not good enough to fight with me, and I'm not desperate enough to be a servant and fight for you.'

‘But you make us sound like we are things,' said Danny. ‘Like we're prisoners.'

Fachtna tutted. ‘Prisoners,' she said. ‘That's such a harsh word.'

‘So we are free to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to your offer of help and walk off?' asked Roisin.

Fachtna grinned. ‘Oh no.'

‘I knew it!' said Danny.

‘This is a better offer than you realize,' said Fachtna, her face cold and hard now and all pretence at humour gone. ‘If you thought Tír na nÓg was dangerous before, you have no idea what it is like when it is at war. You've been here five minutes and already you've run into a raiding party that could have killed you or dispatched you back to Liadan. A raiding party, might I add, that was made up of inexperienced young warriors who were easily beaten by one swordswoman.'

‘How do you know how long we've been in here?' asked Maddy.

‘I was tracking you the whole time,' said Fachtna. ‘Not even the wolf spotted me.'

Nero had the good grace to look ashamed.

‘You won't last any time at all with all four courts on
the rampage,' said Fachtna. ‘You need help. I want the Hound and I am willing to take her useless companions under my protection at the same time, in return for her cooperation. I think that's a good bargain.'

‘Why do you need me so badly?' asked Maddy, her voice sharp with suspicion.

‘I have a plan, little Hound, and you are right at the heart of it,' said Fachtna.

‘Pray tell,' said a familiar voice somewhere above their heads. Startled, they all looked up to see Queen Meabh perched in a tortured tree, its branches raking the sky around her in agony. In a world of black and grey she burned as bright as a ruby. Her red hair tumbled around her like a cloak, thick and heavy and snarled in knots and tangles. Her tall, slim figure was dressed in red plaid, while a gold torc gleamed against her milk-white throat. Gold armbands curved around her muscular biceps and her eyes gleamed fresh and green. She stood up on her perch, held her arms out to her sides and leaned forward. Everyone except Fachtna yelled as she tipped out into space, expecting her to plummet toward the ground, but instead the Tuatha simply walked down the trunk of the tree, bits of burnt bark crumbling at the touch of her leather-booted feet, as if she was out on a stroll. Her familiar, a gigantic black dog with huge yellow eyes called the Pooka, padded toward her
as she reached the ground and rubbed himself against her leg.

‘Not impressed, Fachtna?' she asked as she rearranged her plaid.

‘Not really,' said Fachtna. ‘I've seen that party trick before.'

‘My, my, my,' said Meabh. ‘How sharp your tongue has grown since you have no monarch to curb it. Did it hurt terribly, Fachtna, to be cast aside for another?'

‘I left of my own free will,' sneered Fachtna. ‘It feels good to have it back again.'

‘Does it really?' said Meabh, circling the war faerie, a little wake of dust stirred by her heavy skirts. ‘You surprise me – you always struck me as the kind of faerie who likes the leash and chain. But why leave Liadan just as the Winter Queen gives you exactly what you want? All that blood and death and agony – I would have thought you would have been slavering in anticipation and kissing her icy feet for the chance to draw that sword in a proper battle.'

She stopped, her blood-red lips inches away from Fachtna's cheek as the faerie stared straight ahead. ‘Unless, as you say, you have another plan. Something that will deliver you a little more.'

She walked around Fachtna and behind Maddy and placed a long, triple-jointed hand on her shoulder. Idly,
she picked up a strand of Maddy's wavy brown hair and rubbed it between her fingertips.

‘But what puzzles me is why you think you can simply steal what is mine to help you achieve your goals,' said Meabh. ‘You know full well the Hound has sworn allegiance to me. You cannot use one of my subjects for your own ends without asking my permission – nor can she give her services away.'

Still Fachtna said nothing.

‘But if these plans were to suit my own aims, perhaps I might be persuaded to be generous,' said Meabh.

Fachtna's eyes flickered toward her.

‘Ah,' said Meabh, her lips curving in a sly smile. ‘Now we are negotiating. You want my little pup here and her feeble companions – to what purpose? What would
you
want, Fachtna, more than anything?' Meabh thought for a moment, drumming her spider fingers on Maddy's shoulder. Maddy swallowed and glanced at Danny and Roisin, who looked back at her with white, worried faces. ‘Would it have something to do with a travelling island and its sole occupant?'

This time Fachtna looked straight at Meabh and held her gaze, still keeping her white lips firmly clamped together.

‘Perhaps you would like to see this occupant meddling in our affairs once more?' said Meabh. ‘Say I
were to help you, send you on your way with some tools necessary for the job and the help of the little Hound here and her friends – what do I get in return?'

‘Silence,' said Fachtna. ‘Your subject returned to you. And a debt to be paid.'

‘That's good enough for me!' said Meabh brightly. ‘Come, come, let's send you on your way.'

And with that she simply walked off, back in the direction they had come from, Fachtna striding behind her.

‘What just happened?' asked Maddy.

‘It sounds as if we've all been volunteered for something,' said Roisin.

‘Whatever it is, I bet we're not going to like it,' said Danny. ‘And why couldn't they just come out and say whatever it is Fachtna wants? Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff?'

‘I think I know what they are up to,' said Nero. ‘Fachtna is going to wake the Morrighan.'

They all looked at him, hope making their eyes sparkle. Maddy actually felt giddy with relief for the first time in a long time. The Morrighan could finish Liadan once and for all. The High Queen of the Tuatha de Dannan, it was her magic that brought Tír na nÓg into being. She was the channel for all the hopes and dreams of the mortal world, the nightmares,
the feelings and thoughts. She used it all to create a magic that kept Tír na nÓg alive and the Tuatha away from the mortal world. She dreamed, and Tír na nÓg thrived. She also had the power to crown and dethrone monarchs and had intervened to put an end to wars in the past. There was no way Liadan could stand against her.

‘We've been saying this right from the beginning,' said Danny. ‘Wake the Morrighan up and let her sort the mess out.'

‘I've heard it's dangerous,' said Nero. ‘There is no telling what the Morrighan will do if she is woken.'

‘But she wants balance,' said Maddy. ‘She wants Tír na nÓg to carry on as it is, locked away from the mortal world, the four courts balancing each other out, none more powerful than the others. Surely, if Fachtna manages to wake her, all she's going to want to do is put everything back the way it should be. That will mean getting rid of Liadan, seeing as she is determined to mess everything up.'

‘It sounds like a plan where nothing could go wrong, which really should tell us that it's all going to go
horribly
wrong,' said Roisin.

‘Do we have any other options?' asked Maddy.

‘Do we ever?' said Danny. Roisin sighed.

‘Are you coming with us, Nero?' asked Maddy.

‘Are you joking? Anywhere near Fachtna is probably the safest place for me to be until this is all over,' said the wolf. ‘Considering Liadan is the only one who ever welcomed us here, Fachtna might still be the safest faerie to be around when this is all over.'

‘Why does Fachtna need me so much anyway?' asked Maddy as they scurried after the faeries.

‘Ritual sacrifice?' suggested Danny. ‘OW!' he yelled as Maddy and Roisin punched him on both arms.

‘That's not funny,' said Roisin.

‘No, it's really not,' said Maddy.

‘It's also a really bad guess,' called Nero over his shoulder as he loped ahead of them. ‘Part of the bargain was that Meabh gets Maddy back.' He stopped for a second, his brow furrowing. ‘Mind you, she didn't say whether or not you had to be alive.'

‘NERO!' yelled Maddy.

‘I'm kidding, I'm kidding!' said the wolf as he trotted off with his tail wagging.

They jogged after Nero through the deathly quiet forest. Soon they left its ravaged boundaries to find themselves following Meabh, her Pooka and Fachtna to the river's edge. Maddy shuddered when she saw who was waiting for them there. Meabh's storm hags, her ladies-in-waiting, three hideous women in greasy grey rags, their scabbed scalps pocked with limp strands of
hair, each with one eye gleaming with malevolence in her blue-black face. Two of them carried black bundles in their arms, while the third held a bow made of a pale wood.

Meabh stopped by the river and looked down into the rushing water, dirty and soot-stained as it carried away the wounds of the forest. She reached into her plaid, pulled out a walnut and cracked it neatly in half along its seam.

‘You will need a boat, of course,' she said. The half a walnut shell balanced on her open palm and she blew gently on it. It spiralled out of her hand and up into the air, out over the river, where it drifted down to the water. But instead of speeding away with the current, the little shell began to expand as soon as it touched the water and it grew in front of Maddy's amazed eyes until it rocked gently on the water in front of her, a boat big enough for them all.

‘You will need fire and iron to hold the place you are going to,' continued Meabh, holding out her hands to the storm hags. The one with the smallest bundle stepped forward first and gave it to her. She pulled away the dark cloth to reveal a lantern made of silver, housing a bright green flame.

‘This flame will never go out,' warned Meabh as she handed it to Fachtna. ‘Never let it out of your sight and
be careful where you set it down.' She turned again to the storm hags and clicked her fingers. ‘Arrows with iron heads, coated with pitch. Be careful not to cut yourself.' Maddy noticed she left the arrows covered in their thick black cloth, and that Fachtna shuddered as she took the bundle in her arms.

‘You keep iron?' asked Maddy.

‘Yes,' said Meabh.

‘Why on earth would you keep something so dangerous to yourself?' asked Roisin.

‘Humans do the same thing,' said Meabh. ‘You stockpile weapons, create new ones that kill long after they have been used. Why did humans create the atom bomb when they knew it could be a planet killer? And yet you created it, built it and mass-produced it, and enemies sold it to enemies. My keeping a bit of iron hardly compares, wouldn't you say?'

‘How do you know so much about us?' asked Danny.

‘When other faeries cavort and hunt in the mortal world on Halloween night, I watch TV,' said Meabh, shrugging.

‘Really?' asked Roisin.

‘Yes. It's quite interesting,' said Meabh.

‘What's your favourite programme?' asked Danny.

Roisin and Maddy stared at Danny in horror, while Meabh simply raised an eyebrow at him. One of the
storm hags sniggered but was silenced with an elbow to the ribs by one of her sisters.

Fachtna cleared her throat. ‘With respect, Queen Meabh, time is wasting. The Winter Court is preparing to march to war and will be ready any day now.'

‘Of course, of course,' said Meabh, waving them away with a languid sweep of her long hand. They clambered awkwardly into the boat, which bobbed about on the spot without an anchor. Maddy thought it was going to capsize when Nero jumped in, it lurched so violently, but it managed to stay afloat. As soon as they were all in, it began to float downstream.

‘We've no oars!' cried Roisin, peering over the rim of the walnut shell at Meabh.

‘They're pointless when you don't know where you are going,' said Meabh as she began to walk away, covering her bright red hair and her plaid with a grey cloak. ‘Cheer up, Maddy,' she called back over her shoulder. ‘Soon armies will clash, the Hound will run, and we will have a resolution to so many problems.'

The storm hags cackled as they followed their queen. Only the Pooka was left on the riverbank, staring at Maddy with his glowing yellow eyes.

Maddy watched Meabh stride away with the burnt, smouldering forest in the background, smoke obscuring everything but the devastation.

‘“What's your favourite programme?”!' said Roisin to Danny. ‘You're standing in front of the witch queen and
that's
what you ask her? I'm amazed she didn't turn you into a frog!'

‘I couldn't help it!' said Danny. ‘I mean, there she is, standing there looking all medieval, going on about the telly. You're telling me you didn't want to know? What if she said it was
The X Factor
?'

They looked at each other and burst out laughing, with Nero wagging his tail and looking from face to face.

‘What's
The X Factor
?' he asked.

‘Trust me, you don't want to know,' said Roisin, giggling and draping an arm around him. He snuggled close to her.

‘I don't think that was the right question though,' said Maddy.

‘How do you mean?' asked Danny.

‘You've got to be careful the questions you ask faeries,' said Maddy. ‘They can't lie, but that doesn't mean they can't avoid telling you the truth. You asked her what her favourite programme was – you should have asked her
why
she was watching telly.'

Roisin's smile slipped off her face and she frowned. ‘It's a bit creepy, isn't it?'