War for the Oaks (22 page)

The horses were the color of heavy cream, and big as the Belgians that shook the state fair horse barns with their tread. Their manes were
long, and their tails would have dragged the ground like brides' trains if they hadn't carried them so high. Their saddlecloths were banners of satin, richly colored and trimmed, and their tack was of gold and silver and bright-dyed leather.

Their riders were armored in the broad-shouldered, vaguely Oriental style that Oberycum wore—and in fact, he rode at the head of the cavalry. Eddi recognized his green-and-gold, and the symbol inlaid in his breastpiece, a disk of some golden metal with three green disks inside it, like a three-petaled flower.

Each rider wore his own color: scarlet, deep blue, gray-blue, wine, poppy-orange, violet, butter yellow, and every shade of green. There was even a rider in black, made bright with liberal dashes of white and the three interlaced silver crescent moons on the breastplate. They wore scabbarded swords and carried long white lances that gleamed in the moonlight like a forest of sapling birches.

They passed with a din of hoofbeats and jingling harness, with a smell of clean horse and oiled weapons. "Good God," said Eddi, watching after them.

"Appropriate enough. They were called gods, once."

"What are they called now?"

"Why, what they've always been. They are the Daoine Sidhe—or a sampling of them, anyway—the high lords of Faerie. You see them in their working clothes tonight, my heart. The sight of them on holiday, with bells and whistles in their horses' manes, jewels on their harness, and all their fine clothes on, would quite strike you blind."

"Are you jealous of them?" Eddi asked, surprised.

"Wouldn't you be? Come along, I don't want the slope at our backs."

Eddie hurried after him, and nearly bumped into a little brown woman with nothing on. "Och, mind how ye go," scolded the apparition, squinting up the length of her enormous nose. Her accent reminded Eddi of her grandmother's. "Bloody grrreat oaf," she muttered as she stalked off, bony elbows jutting, drooping breasts swinging furiously.

Eddi caught up with the phouka and grabbed his jacket. "Yo—what about her?"

The phouka looked where Eddie pointed, at the little woman disappearing into the crowd. "What about her?"

"Nobody expects her to fight, do they?"

The phouka grinned. "Silly girl. Believe me, you'd rather face the cavalry. That's Hairy Meg. She can reap a field in the space between midnight and a summer dawn, carry home a lost cow over her shoulders, and chop the winter's wood before a strong man can split the evening's kindling. There aren't many like her here—brownies prefer to choose a household or a territory and not stir from it, not even on the orders of the Sidhe."

"Why is she different?"

The phouka nodded at a low stone wall, part of the bottom section of a stairway. "There," he said. "In the angle of the wall and that fallen tree. We'll be unobtrusive, but we'll be able to move as well, if we need to."

They settled in behind a mat of brush. Before them the army of the Seelie Court spread out across the grass, perhaps two hundred of them, arrayed for an attack from the far slope. They moved restlessly, like grain in the wind, but except for a horse's nervous whinny and the occasional clatter of weapons, they were quiet. While Eddi picked a burr out of her sock, the phouka said, "Meg had a farm in Strathclyde that she watched over—"

"In Scotland?"

"To the best of my knowledge, though I suppose they might have moved it." It was half-hearted sarcasm; the phouka's attention was on the distant hillside. "Unfortunately, there is very little for a brownie to tend on a stretch of motorway, which is what the farm is now."

"Oh dear. But how did she get to America?"

"There are ways. Head
down
, sweet!"

Then the drums began. Eddi couldn't see the drummers, couldn't even tell if they were in the hollow or on the hillside. The rhythm was a wild, rolling march, quick as a racing heartbeat. Like the best dance music, it sent a thrill through her like an electric current, made her restless to move. A shrill battle-yell went up from somewhere in the front of the army, and suddenly the air was full of howls and shrieks and bellows from those ill-assorted throats. With a wail that transformed itself into music, the army surged forward up the slope.

"Bagpipes?" Eddi whispered in the phouka's ear. He nodded.

The far slope was wooded, and the trees kept Eddi from getting any clear view of the front ranks. But there was a terrible din suddenly, of shouting and shrieking, of sounds less human but with the same meaning. Horses neighed like furious trumpets, and metal rang against
metal. She saw flashes of light through the branches, and knew that some of those were moonlight on swords and lances. But there were lights too bright for that, and Eddi wondered what other weapons were being wielded on that slope.

The phouka's hand came down hard over hers. "Shit," he said precisely and with uncanny calm. She looked and saw what he had seen.

Past the mound with its twin trees, deep in the upper end of the bowl, a column of dark figures slipped through the trees toward the army's flank. They were too far away to show much detail, but there was no doubting their intention.

The Seelie Court had no rear guard; all that wild army's attention and effort was bent on the slope before them. The phouka's gaze swiveled desperately between the two forces. Then with a strangled cry he was on his feet. He threw something, a stone perhaps, at the rearmost soldier in the swarm of the Seelie Court. It was too far, no one could throw so far—but she remembered the strength in the phouka's arms. The missile struck the soldier lightly between the shoulder blades, and he turned. Eddi could see his expression, the change from anger to shock as he saw the advancing enemy troop. He shouted. Others turned, and a drum changed beat, and another.

Then the phouka staggered and dropped to his knees next to her. He half fell against her shoulder, a hand pressed to his left temple.

"What is it? Are you—"

"Sorry," he gasped. "I'm afraid I've given away our position."

"Sorry?
My God. Are you all right?"

He gave his head a dismissing little shake. "We have to move, quickly—"

It was too late. Above the trunk of the fallen tree rose a grinning yellow-gray face, its eyes crazy-wide, every dirty tooth in its manic grin pointed as a shark's. There was a jaunty red cap atop it, like a gruesome joke. The thing gave a rasping shriek, jumped onto the trunk and launched itself and its enormous knife at Eddi.

The phouka flung himself between them. The knife flashed somewhere above his upraised left arm. Eddi grabbed a rock, dashed under the phouka's other arm, and brought it down as hard as she could on that red cap. The creature sat down hard, fell backward, and lay still. Eddi stared at the rock in her hands.

"Good God," she said weakly.

"Don't stand there!" the phouka roared. "Get behind me!"

Two more red-hatted horrors leaped up from behind the tree. The phouka snatched one of them up by the neck, and Eddi heard an awful crack. It dropped limp from the phouka's grip, mad eyes staring and blind. The last redcap received the first's knife in his belly, and with a look of mild surprise, he fell backward and out of sight.

The phouka whirled, grabbed Eddi around the waist, and half carried her down the slope. Several things whistled through the air close to them.

"Can you swim?" the phouka shouted over the racket of battle. He dodged as one of the white horses flew wildly out of the struggling mass of creatures to their left. It ran unevenly, trailing its reins. There was blood streaked on its shoulder that did not seem to come from any wound.

"Yes—"

"Good."

Then Eddi caught sight of the shining stain on the left side of his face. "You
are
hurt!"

"Take a deep breath and keep your mouth shut," the phouka advised, and threw her into the creek.

The water that closed over her head was fast and barely above freezing. She tried to go limp and float, but her lungs were empty and her heart seemed stilled with cold. She thrashed and prayed for the feel of night air on her face.

Her jacket pulled up around her neck with a yank, and a moment later her prayer was answered. Breathing made her sane again. Then she realized that more than the current was pulling her downstream.

"Phouka?" she gasped, and got a mouthful of water.

" 'let. And don't t'rash avout." It was the phouka's voice, very close to her ear—and furry. She felt the shape of him against her shoulder, his dog shape. Of course—he had the collar of her jacket in his teeth. She concentrated on keeping her nose above water.

The sound of fighting was loud and horrible. There were none of the bloodless screams of Hollywood warfare; each cry from the bank, however inhuman the throat that made it, seemed to describe to Eddi a wound or a killing stroke. There was a stink of burning in the air that she couldn't account for.

A face rose suddenly next to hers, and she choked on creek water. Sharp, witchy white features and wet white hair that spilled down
behind . . . The creature opened its mouth to speak, and Eddi saw the delicate little fangs. The glaistig.

"Well, Dog," said the glaistig in a voice like water boiling, "are you reduced to carrying the Court's baggage?" She laughed, turning her ice-colored face up to the moonlight.

The phouka's growl shook Eddi's collar.

Something like an animated tree limb, twisted and vivid green as moss, lashed out of the water, and the glaistig's face filled with dismay and rage. She arced up like a leaping fish, like a waterspout, and fell upon it. They disappeared beneath the surface. Eddi saw the turbulence subside as the current and the phouka surged on.

Something blocked her view of the sky, and they stopped moving. She put out her hands, found slippery stone under them, and hung on.

"Bridge," the phouka said softly. "We may rest here, though not for long—they, too, have taken to the water, it seems. Would you mind holding on to me for a moment? I swim fairly well in this shape, but I tread water badly, and if I stop paddling long enough to change, the current will have me halfway to the river."

Eddi put an arm around his neck and back. "Shut up and change."

She found herself holding on to something not quite solid, that prickled even through her jacket and sweater like a series of small static shocks. Then the phouka's human head was in the crook of her arm, his thick black curls sleek with water.

She hadn't realized, when he'd been in dog form, that she'd end up hugging his human shape against her, or that his face would be so close to hers. Moonlight reflected off the water and into his eyes, and they seemed deeper than the creek. Eddi knew she should let go of him, maybe say something. But the moment when she could have done that went past. He opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, and shivered under her arm. "Ah, well," he whispered, with a little catch in his voice.

Then he pulled away and ducked under the water. His head broke the surface again and he shook the water out of his hair with a snap. "I'm a fool," he said calmly. "Come along, my nemesis. If we stay here, we'll freeze to death. Or perhaps worse." He let the current pull him away from the bridge piling, and Eddi, after a moment, did the same.

The creek diverged suddenly, and they held to the right-hand fork, where a gravel bank promised shallows and safe footing. The phouka
scrambled to shore and stood still for a moment, listening to the sounds of fighting on the far bank. He shook his head as Eddi came out of the water.

"I wish I knew who was getting the worst of it," he said. "If they've taken the bridges and are on this side, then the issue is as good as decided. We could go home and lick our wounds." He pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and winced when his fingers hit the gash on his temple. His hand came away with a little blood on it, and he stared at it for a second. "The wages of folly," he said.

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "I showed myself to the enemy, and the enemy showed their appreciation. There's folly, surely."

"Oh, of course. A smart guy would have sat quiet and watched the other side sneak up and slaughter his buddies."

"I had no right to endanger you."

Eddi snorted. "The only stupidity I've seen out of you tonight has been right here on this bank. Come on, let's find out where we are." And she stalked off up the path.

She was annoyed beyond all logic, and she was grateful for it. It kept her from puzzling over the phouka's behavior, and it enabled her to ignore the cold. Her hands were stiff with it, her feet felt like blocks of wood, and her wet clothes were like an ice pack around her. She stamped down the trail to bring the feeling back into her toes.

Suddenly she stopped. The phouka bumped into her. "What is it?" he said softly.

"I don't . . . know." Nothing moved ahead of them except the trailing fronds of the willow on the creek bank. The wind made a weary soughing through its new leaves. But there wasn't that much wind.

The phouka grabbed her arm and pulled her off the path behind a rocky outcropping, away from the creek. "There's an answer to my question," he hissed. "They may not have crossed the water, but their magic has."

"The wind?"

"That wasn't wind. The willows are walking."

Eddi heard a shrill squeaking at the creek's edge. The phouka moved to stop her, but she peered over the top of the boulder in time to see one of the willow tendrils swing up from the bank, coiled around what might have been a muskrat. It struggled and squealed, and another drooping branch rose and twined around its neck. Muskrat fur bulged
on either side of the coils. After a moment, the animal stopped moving.

The phouka tapped her shoulder and pointed up the steep incline away from the path. They scrabbled up the rocks slippery with limestone mud, trying for silence.
Just like nightmares
, Eddi thought.
There's something behind you, but you can't move fast enough, and you're afraid to look back
. She kept listening for the sound of wind in leaves.