The Dark Thorn (17 page)

Richard stormed ahead before Bran could reply. Even though he had gone along with Merle’s wish, a part of Richard rebelled against the boy. Demons. Magicians. Fey creatures and Church conspiracy. The world he had spent years protecting now at his back. While he knew a great deal about Annwn, it could kill him if it discovered his presence.

He was not the Heliwr with authority here.

And all the while he had to survive with a boy who barely shaved.

Before the knight took a dozen steps, Arrow Jack screeched loudly in the trees above just as a series of deep resonating coughs thundered in the distance. The sound was unmistakable.

The braying of hounds on hunt.

“Damnit,” Richard muttered, eyes combing the forest.

“What is it?”

“We are caught.” Anger replaced shock in the knight. “They knew we were coming.”

“Who?!”

“Who do you think!?” Richard exploded, already turning around. “While I was gabbing with you, our entrance into this world was discovered!”

The barking grew louder.

“What can we do?” Bran asked hurriedly.

“I don’t know! Go back, find some kind of protection.”

“The portal is hours away! There is no protection for us back there!”

“Oh?” Richard shouted. “We’ll see about that.”

Richard flew, his long limbs carrying him forward back the way they had come. Bran kept up. The knight could not believe his luck. They were already hunted.

But by whom? Through the holes in the forest canopy where the rolling hills rose toward mountains, the sickened areas of Dryvyd Wood became visible again, a throbbing stain of decay with a powerful disdain for life.

Richard ran straight toward the heart of it.

With Bran a shadow on his heels, Richard fled through Dryvyd Wood’s dark confines as if chased by death itself, with one thought ricocheting through his mind.

Escape.

The harsh deep braying of the hounds penetrated him like splinters, the sound closer with every running step. Richard kept his anger focused on flight. No matter how many directions taken or hills crossed, the hounds were an indelible presence, unshakeable in their hunt. The brook where he called the fairy ring had long-since been crossed, the ill-twisted trees that protected the portal surrounding them once more. Through the canopy the Carn Cavall and Snowdon grew in the far distance, the mountain heights an unattainable safe haven the knight now wished more than anything to be within reach.

“Where are we going?” Bran breathed hard.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“The stream back there maybe?” Bran suggested. “Hide our passing?”

“A movie cliché, nothing more,” Richard said. “These hounds are far too well-trained to be thrown off our scent so easily.”

The pursuit echoed everywhere, no longer just behind, the barks on top of them. Richard slowed to a quick walk, eyes casting about for the right spot.

“What are you looking for?”

“There,” Richard pointed out, moving up the gradual slope where anorexic trees grew in stagnated competition with one another. There wasn’t much space between them. In their midst, a tiny outcropping of granite broke free from the forest, a serrated throne within the malformed, dark wood.

“This is your plan?” Bran asked increduously.

“Stay close behind me,” the knight ordered. “And remember what I said about the trees.”

Bran flinched where he was almost touching one.

“Exactly,” Richard said simply as he backed them against the thrust of rock.

Minutes passed, each one an eon as the inevitable approached. It didn’t take long. The first hound burst into view, as large as the cu sith but sleeker and faster, like an Irish wolfhound. Dirtied white wheaten fur coated its frame as the canine barked low to the ground until it sighted Richard and Bran, red ears flattened against its box-like head. Others quickly joined it. Twelve dogs circled them, each threateningly cutting off escape.

Richard stood in front of Bran, muscles taut for the fight. He called Arondight and it materialized into his hand without difficulty, the runes along its silvery blade throbbing azure.

The dogs growled lower in response but did not flinch, digging in.

Minutes passed in stalemate.

Then a hound more powerfully built and larger than the others emerged from the path of their flight. Upon its back rode a short, stocky man with a matted copper beard and matching wild hair.

The hounds moved aside, their eyes still fixed on their quarry.

With both hands gripping the thick fur of his mount, the rider grinned maliciously, his hunt over. Only when the houndmaster drew close did the knight see he was not alone; behind him rode an ancient woman, her cheeks gaunt and wrinkled, her stringy gray hair falling over blue-tinged skin as if dunked in ice. Death hung upon her, permanent and unyielding, but in her watery orbs a fire of terrible life burned with murderous malice.

“Now be still, my pretties,” the short man cajoled, his green eyes never deviating from Richard. “Tell ya when, tell ya when, ah will.”

The beasts whined, their desire obvious.

“Be still yourself, Goronwy,” the ancient woman growled, her gaze shifting from Bran to Richard as she slid off the lowered hound, rags hanging from her bones as if in afterthought. “Let me off this flea-bitten beast.”

“We have no quarrel with you,” Richard snarled.

Stormy eyes fixed on the knight. “Nah, not with me. With someone else. Come with me now, like a good lil’ one.”

“Never,” Richard replied, his ire raising flames along Arondight.

“You know me, yes?” she prodded.

“I do. The Cailleach,” Richard answered. He looked around. “Odd summer day today, isn’t it, witch?”

“Yar, knight,” Goronwy said beside the ugly woman. “Powerful, she is. Don’t give my dogs reason to be let loose.”

“Bring those dogs closer and they will be whining, houndmaster,” Richard taunted.

“Oh, they will, in time,” the witch cackled. “They love flesh and—”

Richard didn’t give her a chance to finish. He flicked the tip of Arondight in the direction of Goronwy and sent a ball of azure flame shooting forward, a whoosh of burning air. The mount of the houndmaster shied away, eyes wild, as he cowered, fear twisting his warding limbs.

Before it could incinerate its intended victim, the flaming ball broke course, pushed aside by a powerful gust of wind to disintegrate harmlessly into one of the malformed trees.

“Knight of nothing,” the Cailleach cackled, her hands coated in ice.

“What does your master want?” Richard asked.

“You,” she said. “Both.”

“Not a chance.”

“In my world now, portal pup,” the Cailleach sneered. “The High King paid well.”

“Paying you in how many lives to be his
bitch
?” Richard spat. “What else have you destroyed, other than the seasons?”

“I do that for free. Eternal summer. For his war,” she said, then flicked her tongue at him with lurid suggestion. “Though I do miss my winter curves. Care to touch?”

“Your dreams have nothing to do with this.”

“Your loss.”

“Will be your life,” Richard replied.

“Ah see. A lot o’ fight in ya,” the crone mocked. She turned to Goronwy. “Make sure they don’t escape, but keep those mutts out of dis.”

The witch didn’t wait. She attacked with a wail, a whirlwind of frigid air rushing toward Richard. The knight expected it. He jammed Arondight into the ground, its runes flaring like the sun. The world fell away while his fear turned into adrenaline. The gale shook the limbs of Dryvyd Wood and ice shot through earth, coating the world in silvered glass. But the wind lost its tenacity as it met the sword and the power Richard wielded. Gritting his teeth and hoping Bran was smart enough not to flee, the knight kept his focus on the hag, an indomitable spirit against her wintry wrath.

The icy power of the witch could not reach them.

The Cailleach growled frustration and ended the blast.

The clearing coated in ice and frost, Richard pulled Arondight free of the ground to face his adversary anew.

“That it?” Richard asked, sweat prickling his skin.

The question had the desired effect. Face contorting in rage, the hag wove her glowing white hands in the air—until a thunder shook the wood and cut her off.

Appearing from the east, two dozen warriors reined-in horses to surround the ring of dogs, the men dressed in black with breastplates bearing the silver insignia of a hawk below faces chiseled in hardship. Quick on their heels, a second group arrived, the white-cloaked riders wearing chrome greaves, canonical helmets, and hauberks beneath white mantles stamped with a crimson cross. All of the warriors were heavily armed, some with broadswords or axes, others with bows and quivers of arrows. The warhorses stamped impatiently, waiting on their masters.

Richard felt the day grow dark.

Their chance of escape had vanished.

The warriors bearing the cross were Templar Knights.

“Hag!” a man in black roared, his engraved breastplate of a higher quality than those around him. “Step away!”

“Lord of
Assbirth
,” the Cailleach snapped. “These are more crafty than you know.”

“No one speaks to the Lord of Arberth thus, witch,” a mounted blonde man said, his finely chiseled features flushed with rage. “Lord Gwawl is one of the finest men beneath the banner of the High King. He should have you skinned alive.”

“He is under the king in some way, true,” the Cailleach screeched. “Shut the hole above your chin, Sanddev, or ah’ll do it for you. Yeh be too purty to be here anyhow.”

Men about Lord Gwawl snickered. Sanddev glared at them.

“Let us pass freely and I will let you live!” Richard yelled for all to hear.

“Let
us
live?” Lord Gwawl barked a laugh, the Cailleach forgotten. “Look around you. Apparently the Seven have grown daft over the years.”

More laughter echoed. Richard tensed, prepared for the worst.

“Talk is wasted. The hunt is over. Let us take them—now,” a man beside Sanddev said, his raven hair braided and hawkish eyes fierce for confrontation.

“Evinnysan has the right of it,” Sandevv agreed.

The Cailleach grinned gleefully. The houndmaster whistled shrilly into the air, calling his hounds back. The ringing song of warriors freeing weapons echoed in the dark forest.

“Enough!” thundered a voice.

From behind the wall of lathered horses, another man rode forward. Both warrior groups parted. Richard knew the man, had learned a great deal about John Lewis Hugo from Merle during training. Wearing fine sable clothing beneath a shirt of chain mail, the rider glared at those around him, half his face a ruined mask. Despite the destroyed flesh, both eyes glared with equal ferocity at the knight, the contempt palpable. He carried no weapons but to either side of his horse lumbered two Fomorians, brutish giants Richard knew once existed in the old world.

Richard barely gave Philip Plantagenet’s second-in-command pause. An inky blackness rippled in the shadowy background of the forest behind him, absorbing the light as it came, the stale odor of unwashed bodies permeating Dryvyd Wood. Human faces, twisted and deformed, appeared from the darkened mass, attached to short spindly limbs and crooked bodies. Down on all fours, tortured frenzy glimmered from beady black eyes. Others had snouts like wolves, eyes burning with bloodlust and fangs slavering. They came mewling low like eager cats awaiting a meal, muscles twitching for release.

The horses balked at the beasts, panic threatening to overwhelm them. Helplessness cascaded over Richard. There were too many creatures, too many men holding weapons. Even two Fomorian giants. It was over.

“Knight!” John Lewis Hugo shouted. “Stand down!”

“I will not!”

John Lewis Hugo grinned, the burned side of his face inflexible. “What fun would that be, eh? Quit this. I have no wish to harm you.”

“That’s why you bring those abominations of nature.”

“I believe the High King requested you be
unspoiled
, is how he put it,” John Lewis Hugo said. “The demon wolves are here to protect you from those who would do you harm, nothing more.”

“Philip Plantagenet should have died in his cradle as history recounts!”

“But that was not the Word’s will, now was it?” John Lewis Hugo countered. “Instead of spending your life enabling the hypocrisy of the Church and that senile wizard, you should embrace a larger cause to set things right.”

“John Lewis Hugo,” Richard said carefully, curbing his anger. “Do not forget who you are. You are a good man. Let that twisted creature that has been imprisoned inside of you free and do the right thing here.”

“So shortsighted. You know not of what you speak.”

“You are as wrong as those creatures behind you.”

A frown shrouded John Lewis Hugo’s face as he turned to the witch.

“Have the demon wolves take them cleanly,” he said.

The Cailleach made a curt hand movement.

As if a dam had broken, the creatures bound around their master and the Fomorians, coming straight for Richard. The knight did not panic; he sent his fire into the nearest of the creatures, setting it ablaze and the trees around it. More demon wolves were cut down by azure bursts, their hissing and screams madness in the air. More came on, a torrent of claws and glee, the destruction of their brethren only emboldening them further, a curtain already falling upon the knight. Richard knew he could not stop them all. With his power threatening to overwhelm him like a flood, leaving him a useless husk, the knight focused on his enemy and conserved what he could.