Awakenings

“Princess of Avalon, wake up!”

Neve groaned, snuggling closer to Cameron. He was snoring softly, sprawled on his back with one arm curled around her. It was warm beneath their blankets and she knew full well that it wasn’t even close to dawn. She had to be dreaming.

“Neve!”

Tendrils of ice skated over her cheek, ice laced with lightning. She jerked upright, swearing in the darkness. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the dim glow of Eriu’s spectre lurking next to the bed.

“He’s here, Neve,” the spirit whispered. “Seamus is here.”

Neve threw herself out of bed, yanking on her coat and boots, eschewing crutches and ignoring pain in her haste. She tore out of their sleeping quarters, through the tents, out into the snow. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly and she sucked in deep lungfuls of icy air, gaze darting wildly.

“Where?” she breathed, realizing in an instant that she’d somehow left Eriu behind, that the ghostly guardian angel wasn’t with her.

Then she felt it, the barest trace of a link, so faint that she nearly missed it. It was like a gossamer thread, translucent and weak, shining faintly silver in the darkness, no thicker than a single strand of spider’s web. Her heart thudded painfully against her breast and her eyes started to water.

“Seamus,” she whispered. “Conas chaill mé tú, deartháir mór.”

She followed that thread toward the edge of camp, toward the bridge. Two figures stood in the shadows on the bridge, leaning against the rail and staring out into the heart of the ravines. One was clearly Phelan—his staff was glowing slightly in the darkness, so dimly than she doubted that he’d noticed it. The other figure with him, though…

“Deartháir mór.” She sucked in a ragged breath and ran to them, catching the dark-cloaked figure around the waist with both arms, knocking the breath from him and sending them both pitching into Phelan, her brother’s name on her lips.

“Seamus!”

They crashed to the ground together in a tangle of limbs, brother cradling sister as they fell. His eyes widened in the darkness and he breathed words that froze her heart in her chest.

“Déithe agus arrachtaigh. There’s two.”

“What in blazes are you doing?”

“You wanted to talk,” Phelan snapped. “We’re going to go talk.”

His skin prickled slightly as they grew closer to the edge of the ravine and the lines of power that twisted below. Seamus stumbled and caught himself. There was a slight tremor in his voice as Seamus asked, “Where are you taking me, Phelan?”

“To the other side of the bridge,” Phelan said. “Toward the barrow.” He glared over his shoulder at Seamus. “I assume the stories about the Hunt are true. You feel the tuggings of the dead.”

Seamus sucked in a breath and nodded, jerking his arm free of Phelan’s hand just as they reached the near side of the bridge. “We can,” he said. “Though that’s not why we’ve come here.”

“Then why?” Phelan turned to face him, planting his staff between his feet in the snow. “Why did you come here now, Seamus? Why bring the Hunt here?”

“Something called us,” Seamus whispered. “I don’t always understand the call, but I know it when I feel it. We all do. Something called us here and it wasn’t the souls or whatnot that lay in the barrow you’re dragging me to.”

Phelan’s eyes narrowed. “You have to know that I hate the way that sounds.”

“You wouldn’t have been a worthy successor to me if you did.” Seamus smiled sadly and shook his head. “Lead on.”

Phelan inclined his head and turned, heading across the bridge. He paused at its apex, leaning against the rail and staring out into the darkness. Seamus stopped next to him, following his gaze.

“There’s power here,” Seamus whispered.

“There are two Seers here,” Phelan said. “The ones I was supposed to look for, the ones that presaged something greater and more terrible than anything we’d ever seen before.”

Seamus looked at him. “The harbingers.”

Phelan closed his eyes. “Neve is here, too.”

Seamus took a sharp breath. Phelan continued.

“You could have told us.”

“Albina betrayed me. Who knows what she would have done to protect herself, to stop anyone from learning the truth?”

Phelan turned to look at him in the dim. “Our blood runs together, Seamus, here in this place. Neve is here, I’m here, you’re here. Neve’s lover is of your blood by Leinth. The Seers…one is my blood, the other is Teague’s. There’s a Spiritweaver of a talent I’ve not seen in centuries and he’s Teague’s blood, too.

“If something drew you here, it must have been that. There’s a purpose to your coming and I only hope it’s not a violent one.”

Seamus shuddered. “I pray the same,” the leader of the Wild Hunt whispered into the night. “I pray the same.”

“Don’t say that name,” the Wild Hunt’s leader said softly.  “Not yet.”

Phelan’s mouth tasted like ashes.  He swallowed hard, nodding slightly as Seamus turned and beckoned to another of the riders, a waif-slender figure on a solid chestnut mare.  Was it really Seamus, or was he imagining his cousin’s face attached to the leader of the Hunt?  Was this some kind of cruel trick?

They said he was alive.  They said he was dead.  Is this what they meant?  His heart stutter-stepped and for a second, the world spun dizzily around him.  Thom’s hand closed around his shoulder.

“Phelan?”

He waved away the question, staring transfixed as the slender figure leaned down to catch murmured instructions from the Hunt’s lead rider for the span of a few seconds, then straightened in his saddle.  Seamus turned away from his rider and walked directly to Phelan, taking him roughly but not unkindly by the arm

“Walk with me, Wanderer.”

It was a tone that brooked no argument, but Thom seemed poised to make one on his behalf.

“I’m not sure—”

“It’s fine,” Phelan said, glancing at his friend.  “Bring out a few bottles of whiskey and bourbon and wait for me here.”

“Are you sure?” J.T. asked.

“He is,” Thordin told them, eyes never leaving Seamus’s face.  “Come on, we’d better do as he says.  This lot is likely to get ornery if we don’t.”

Phelan caught Thom’s shudder out of the corner of his eye as he turned away to walk with Seamus.  An errant wind teased the hems of their cloaks as they walked toward the river, parallel to the settlement’s walls.  Both men were silent for a few dozen steps before Seamus turned his face toward the starlit sky.

“I see you’re no longer a stranger to command,” he said, his voice soft.  It sounded different than it once had, a strange, jagged edge marring its once-musical cadence.

“I don’t command them,” Phelan said, then shook his head hard. “How are you here?  How are you with them?  We were told you were dead.”

“I very nearly was.”  Silence dropped over them like a cloak and Phelan momentarily feared that he’d asked the wrong question too soon, that he’d never know the answers to all of the questions that swirled through his head like a maelstrom.

“Truth be known,” Seamus continued after a few long moments, “I’m hardly the man I was once upon a time.  Betrayal does that.”

“Within the Hunt?”

Seamus snorted softly.  “To the Hunt.”

Ice shot through Phelan’s veins.  “How?  Who?”

A bitter, wry smile twisted the former Taliesin’s lips.  “My wife.”

Phelan stopped dead, heart thundering.  “Leinth?”

Seamus startled, twisting back toward Phelan, the muscles of his shoulders, neck, and jaw taut.  “Leinth was my lover and would that I had married her instead of her sister.”

Phelan stumbled back a step and sat down in the snow.  Seamus gave him a strange, curious look.

“What do you know of mo ghrá daor, Phelan?”

“Déithe agus arrachtaigh, why the hell didn’t you see fit to tell us then?”  Phelan’s staff lay next to him in the snow as he raked both hands through his hair, suddenly sweating.  “You could have—there was so much—”

“Father never would have accepted it.”

“Pox on your bloody father,” Phelan snarled.  “He was dead soon enough!  You could have told us.”

“I was sold to the Hunt the day I left home,” Seamus said, eyes gleaming in the darkness.  “You would have had me plunge all of you into danger and uncertainty?  I did what I had to do.”

“Don’t use that line on me, Seamus, I practically invented it.”  Phelan swallowed against the anger and sickness that rolled together into a lump in his throat.  “Part of us died the day that rider came.  You don’t know what it did to us.  If we’d—do you have any—”

“I can only hope she eventually forgave me,” Seamus whispered.  “Before they killed her, I hope that she was able to find a way to forgive me.”

“Killed her?”  Phelan pushed to his feet, fingers closing around the warm wood of the staff.  “Leinth’s alive.”

“Alive?”

“She’s here.”  The two men stared at each other as they stood in the snow.   “What’s happened to you, Seamus?”

“I lead the Wild Hunt,” his cousin whispered. “Isn’t that explanation enough?”

“No,” Phelan said flatly.  “Not by a long shot.”

He took Seamus’s arm and marched him toward the bridge.

Lanterns and torches bobbed into view as they shoved the gates open wide and for the first time since getting up, Phelan felt a frisson of fear worm down his spine and into his gut.  They were facing the bloody Wild Hunt.  He hadn’t faced them since times he couldn’t remember.

Who the bloody hell is in charge of them now, I wonder?

He frowned briefly but was careful not to let the others see.  Regardless, he was about to find out who was in charge of the legendary band, whether he liked it or not.

Hunting hounds and half-tamed wolves yelped and danced around the ankles of horses barely held in check by their cloaked and cowled riders. There were two dozen of those riders, their leader sitting astride a great black warhorse whose shoulder stood as tall as Phelan.  The warhorse danced beneath his rider, prancing sideways to the left until the figure hauled on the reins, bringing the shenanigans to an end.

Phelan sucked in a deep breath, moved his staff from his right hand to his left, then strode toward the lead rider of the Wild Hunt. He pretended that his heart wasn’t going at twice its normal speed, forced his expression to remain impassive and stern.

Don’t show any fear, he prayed at his companions.  Don’t let them see any worry, any fear.  That’s their power.

“Hail and well met,” he said, relieved at the firm steadiness of his voice.  The lead rider stared down at him for a long moment.

“Well met,” a gravelly voice murmured from the depths of the cowl.  After a long, silent moment, the figure swung down from his mount.  The hounds that had been milling around came to heel at the figure’s feet and he stepped away from them, toward Phelan.

“Wanderer,” the figure added after a moment.

Phelan inclined his head.  “Yes.  Have we met?”

“Oh yes,” the figure said softly.  “Long ago and far away.”

The hood came down and Phelan’s heart froze in his chest.

Seamus.

His heart had started to match the rhythm of those drums by the time they were out in the snow and cold beneath the watchtower.  “Fear fiach, get down here.”

Thom’s face appeared from above, blue eyes narrowing slightly before he scrambled down the ladder.  “I don’t suppose anyone brought my sword.”

Phelan grimaced and shook his head.  “Doesn’t seem like it, but I’m hoping we won’t need it.”

Thom gave him a walleyed stare and Phelan nearly laughed despite himself.

Expect the worst but hope for the best—except for when hope’s been beaten bloody and left in the street to die.  He knew that look, had seen it before. Phelan clapped him on the shoulder, gripped and squeezed for a moment.

“Do you trust me, fear fiach?”

Thom exhaled a sigh.  “You know I do.”

Phelan nodded firmly.  “Then give me a few inches.”  He glanced beyond Thom to Thordin and J.T., who had descended from the watchtower in Thom’s wake.  The rumble of hooves shivered the ground and the calls of hunting hounds mingled with the sound of drums.  The rest of camp wouldn’t stay asleep for long.

Neve will have felt this by now—unless Jac or J.T. gave her something to help her sleep.  Marin’s certainly felt it, and Kellin, and Cameron…  He frowned briefly, giving in to the brief urge to shiver.

“We’re going out to meet them,” he said.  “The five of us.”  He inclined his head toward Sif to include her in their number.

“Six,” Leinth said, peering at him from around J.T.’s shoulder.

He shook his head.  “No.  You stay here, guard the gate.  We’ll need someone who can hold it if things go sour.”

Leinth glanced sidelong toward Sif, then met Phelan’s gaze.  “Lady Sif would be a better choice for that role.”

Sif glared at Leinth.  “No.  You are more than equal to the task.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Rory said, breath steaming in the air.  “We’ll hold it together.”

Phelan nodded firmly.  “Then it’s settled.  Thordin, Thom, Jay, Sif, with me.”

“Do we have a plan?”  J.T. asked, sounding like he didn’t actually want to hear the answer to the question he’d just voiced.

Phelan just laughed.  “Negotiate,” he said simply as he strode toward the gates.  “They’ll listen.”

“You sound sure of that,” Thordin said.

“That’s because I am,” Phelan said, giving his friends a grim smile.  “Trust me.”

I’m right on this one, and I’ll prove it.

He felt the drums before anything else.

At first, he’d thought it was a dream until he felt Jacqueline shift against his side and murmur something into his neck. Phelan opened his eyes and stifled the urge to groan. The throb of those drums in the distance resonated down through his very soul. He knew those drums.

They ride.

His lips brushed Jacqueline’s temple and he eased out of bed, balling a blanket against her to fill the space where he’d been laying. She didn’t need to be involved. Not this time.

“Sleep,” he whispered, pushing a measure of his own gift into the whispered word, fingers catching in her hair as he brushed his hand over her head. “Sleep.”

He was dressed before Rory knocked on the door. His ribs twinged, side ached. Rory winced as Phelan opened the door.

“I should let you—”

Phelan shook his head. “It’s no use. I know they’re coming.” Not for me, though. Not this time.

The thought should have cheered him, but he only felt hollow.

His fingers closed around his staff and he took his satchel of herbs from the peg near the door. For a moment, he thought about taking Jacqueline’s as well, but thought better of it.

Sif was waiting in the darkness of the corridor, holding a lantern. Their gazes met for a moment. Her eyes narrowed. He sighed.

“For what it’s worth,” he said in a whisper, “I’m sorry.”

“As well you should be,” she hissed back. “One of you should have found a way to tell me.”

“We couldn’t tell what we didn’t know.”

Rory relieved Sif of the lantern, shaking his head. “Can we not do this right now? Trouble’s practically on our doorstep.”

“No practically about it,” Phelan muttered, hand tightening around his staff. It was warm to the touch, warmer than it should have been.

He slipped past Rory and started to move faster as the drums set his bones shivering.

There would be only one chance at this and they’d best make it count.

“What the hell is she doing?” Thom blurted.

J.T. swallowed bile, watching Leinth cross the snow to the gates. He stood, frozen by indecision for a few long moments before he swore under his breath and started after her.

“Jay!”

He waved off Thom’s warning and fell into step with Leinth a few seconds later. She glanced at him sidelong, a brow arching delicately.

J.T. shook his head. “What are you doing, Leinth?”

“Heading out to face the enemy,” she said simply, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to open the gates and step out into the killing fields beyond the walls. “What are you doing?”

“Stopping you from throwing open the gates,” J.T. said, taking her by the arm and pulling her back toward the tower. “We need a plan before we do something like that, trust me.”

“Because plans have done you such good in the past.”

J.T. snorted, steering her toward the ladder. “You’d be surprised.”

She canted her head to one side. “Perhaps.”

He snorted again and pointed to the ladder. She gave him a chilly look before she started to slowly scale the ladder upwards. He gave her a moment before he followed her up, climbing quickly despite the awkward weight and shape of the claymore strapped to his back.

“You know,” Thordin said blandly to Leinth as he helped her off the ladder, “The last time one of us went out there to face an enemy alone, he almost died.”

“I’m not the Wanderer,” Leinth reminded him, a trace of acid in her tone. J.T. winced and shook his head.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Against this enemy, we need to stick together. No one’s going out there alone.”

Thom glanced at him, pale in the light from the lantern. “You say that like you know what’s coming.”

J.T. smiled grimly. “Are you looking for confirmation?”

“Maybe.”

“The Wild Hunt.”

“Shit,” Thom breathed. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”

J.T. shrugged helplessly. It was only the truth.

“We’re in trouble,” Thordin said quietly.

“Hell yes,” J.T. said, peering out into the distance. “But we’ll win. Always do.”

We always do because we’ve got to. This time can’t be any different.

It just can’t be.

“Go wake them,” J.T. rumbled. “Then catch up with us. Do it quick.”

“No doubt,” Rory muttered. “You want the lantern?”

J.T. shook his head. “Don’t need it. They will.”

“Right.” Rory clapped him on the shoulder, then turned and headed to wake Sif and Phelan. J.T. watched the lantern’s light disappear as Rory ducked around a corner. He sucked in a deep, quiet breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Be careful,” Constance’s voice whispered in his mind.

“Step lightly,” Eriu said from his elbow. His eyes blinked open and he looked down, meeting her large, luminescent eyes in the darkness. “They’re dangerous, though you might be able to get through to them. They’ll recognize your gift and theirs.”

J.T. sucked in a breath, fighting off the urge to shiver at her words. “Do you really think we’ve got a shot?”

“Uncle rode with them for a time. My mother managed to negotiate. If that was possible for them, it must be possible for you.” Her ghostly fingers brushed his. “Be careful. All of you, be careful.”

“Of course,” he murmured, giving her a weak smile in the darkness. She bit her lip and nodded once, then stepped back, fading away into nothing.

J.T. steeled himself and kept walking.

The chill bit into him as he stepped out into the night. A flash in the distance beyond the walls left him momentarily dazzled. He swore under his breath and started to run now that he was on open ground. His feet slid out from underneath him for a moment and he stumbled, picking himself up again and running full-tilt toward the watchtower.

He could see Leinth ahead of him, her dark cloak a smudge against the snow. She stood near one of the supports, staring at him in the darkness. Her whispered words came to him on the wind.

“It’s trouble.”

“I know,” he said aloud, wincing at the volume of his voice. It seemed too loud and too quiet all at once.

“Jay, is that you?” Thom called from the tower.

“It’s me,” J.T. called back. He glanced at Leinth as he scrambled to the ladder, started scaling it. “Are you coming?” he asked her.

“Not yet,” she said.

Then she turned and walked slowly, oh so slowly, toward the gates.

They moved down the shadowed hall, J.T.’s heart growing heavier with each beat, with each step.  The baying of the hounds echoed in his ears, through his thoughts, even though he could tell by the look on Rory’s face that his friend couldn’t hear them.  J.T.’s stomach sank, expression tightening as he considered the possibilities—how he could hear them but his friend couldn’t.

I can speak to the dead, see the dead.  Legends say the Hunt is made up of the dead.

He sucked in a ragged breath.

“Something’s coming,” a voice said softly behind them.  J.T. nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning toward Leinth, who lurked behind them, her face a pale smudge in the shadows.

“Fucking hell,” he gasped.  “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Almost, anyway,” she said with a faint smile, one that never made it to her eyes and faded quickly from her lips.  “You can sense them.”

J.T. grimaced and nodded.  “Are they dead?”

“No,” she said softly.  “Not really.”

With that, she ducked between the two men and hurried out toward the tent, toward the cold outdoors.

Rory stared at J.T. for a long moment.  “That was weird.”

“Nothing’s weird anymore.”  J.T. started to follow Leinth.  Rory grabbed his arm, making him pause.

“I have to go wake Phelan and Sif,” Rory said quietly.  “Do you know what’s out there?”

“Maybe,” J.T. murmured.  “The Wild Hunt?”

“That’s what Thom said.”

“Then it’s the Wild Hunt.”  J.T. barely managed to suppress his shudder.   “Fuck me sideways.”

“I’m hoping that’s not what they’re coming here to do.”  Rory made no effort to stop his shiver.  “Phelan going to be okay to fight?”

“That’s a question for him, not me.  Cross your fingers we can talk our way out of this.”

“Do you actually think that’s likely?”

This time, J.T. did shudder.  “No.  No, I don’t.”

J.T. wasn’t sleeping.

He could feel them coming.

Even with Carolyn snuggled against his side, he couldn’t get warm, couldn’t shake the chill that sank its icy claws into him. He lay on his back in the darkness and stared at a ceiling hidden in darkness and shadow. Every so often, he’d see a flicker, a mote of muted light that were the only glimpses he’d ever managed to catch of Carolyn’s faery companions. They were quiet tonight, huddled close together as if they were terrified of what might be coming.

I can’t blame them.

His heart thudded leadenly against his breastbone and he wrapped an arm around Carolyn, hugging her a little closer to his side. She murmured something into his shoulder, snuggling closer. His eyes stung.

They’re coming.

He wasn’t sure how he knew who they were or why they were on their way, but the sense of dread that pressed down on him, threatened to suffocate him and made his chest and his head hurt—that told him all that he needed to know

It’s bad.

His lips brushed Carolyn’s temple and he slid out of bed, tucking blankets more tightly around her as he did. He dressed quickly in the darkness and pulled on his boots. All was quiet in the corridor for now, but that didn’t mean anything.

I wonder if this is what Thom and Marin feel like sometimes. He pulled on his coat and strapped on his claymore. There was going to be a fight. His gut told him as much.

He jerked open the door to find Rory standing in the darkness with a lantern in hand, his other hand raised to knock.

“Something’s up.” J.T. murmured.

Rory nodded, peering past him into the shadows. J.T. glanced over his shoulder, then met Rory’s gaze again.

“Let her sleep,” J.T. said, shutting the door behind him.