When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (35 page)

“Thomas?” Teagan asked, realizing whose hand it was. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Roisin,” Thomas said. “I knew Fear Doirich wouldn’t kill me as long as he thought I was useful in finding Aiden.”

“And were you?”

“Not very,” Thomas said. “But then, he wasn’t useful in helping me find Roisin, either.”

“Where’s he gone?” Teagan asked.

“To kill your brother.” Thomas touched the flower Finn had laced through her buttonhole. “Moon roses only grow in one place. I’ll help Aiden if I can.” The
lhiannon-sídhe
shifted, and lifted into the air on a raven’s wings.

The First Grove
. Fear Doirich was already there. Teagan grabbed Enkidu with one hand and shoved the knife into her own belly with the other. The world exploded around her.

Thirty-one

T
EAGAN’S
eyes were open, and there was nothing but green leaves above her. One heartbeat . . . two . . . by the fifth she could hear Aiden’s screams . . . and Abby’s . . . and rising above them both, Fear’s voice, singing three distinct notes at once, the lower two discordant, and the third twisting a melody. Enkidu brushed the leaves from her face, then held his finger to his lips.

Teagan nodded, and he pulled her to her feet. Aiden’s leaf blanket had saved her life. The phookas that she now saw kneeling, hands over their ears, heads bowed before their terrible god, must have come looking for Aiden, but they would have been happy to find her flesh and bones as well.

Fear Doirich stood on the bank of the pool, holding her brother up by one foot. A battle raged in the air above him, dark sprites fighting a single wood sprite—Lucy, fighting for her life, and for Aiden’s.

A dying phooka lay on the ground between Teagan and Fear, its belly sliced cleanly open.
Mamieo’s knife
. Finn had certainly killed that one, but she couldn’t see him anywhere.

She had to turn to see Abby, still screaming, struggling to free her feet from the ground. Fear Doirich had planted her like he had planted Eógan.

The only phooka still moving was the wolf-headed man on the ground before Doirich, the handle of the Dark Man’s scepter pierced through its shoulder like a spear, pinning it to the ground. It was less human than any of those who knelt before the Dark Man, and clearly less devout. It snarled and snapped and tried to lunge toward him, but the Dark Man’s words wrapped around it, and its mortal flesh changed, responding to Fear Doirich’s song, moving to his will. Now the legs it kicked were not human, but goat legs.

Teagan started toward Fear Doirich, and the phooka on the spear looked past the Dark Man and saw her.

“Hard-choice time, girl,” it said in Finn’s voice. He was pulling himself up the spear shaft with human hands, trying to get to Fear Doirich.

Doirich began to turn toward Teagan, and Enkidu went straight up the Dark Man’s back, wrapping his arms around his head and clapping his hand over his mouth. Teagan leaped for Aiden, the force of her jump ripping him from the Dark Man’s grip.

She turned and dove into the pool, both arms wrapped around her brother. She carried him as deep as she could, down to where the roots tangled together. There were wild currents in this pool, pulling one way and then another. Aiden was nearly pulled away from her when she reached out to catch a root with one hand, but she managed to hold on to his shirt.

The water closed around them, shutting out Fear’s voice. It wasn’t dark below the surface. It was like falling through a one-way mirror. She could see the moon in the night sky above, and it lit everything around her. The first Song of Creation was stronger here than Teagan had ever heard it. It was wild and joyful, calling order out of chaos, beauty out of darkness, forming art and music that swirled past her in the currents, then vanished. Aiden caught a root and held on.

Teagan looked around for the lights that would show her the surfaces of other pools. They were like beautiful stars in the distance—some blue, some golden, and some strangely green—but much too far away. Getting to even the nearest would be death for her in this body. Death for Aiden.

She turned to her brother, not wanting him to be alone at the end. To be afraid. But Aiden wasn’t afraid. He was floating free, eyes wide, his fingers spread to the water. He was hearing the music too, and . . . Teagan frowned. Something more than music, perhaps, because his fingers curled and fluttered in signs she didn’t understand. Aiden was talking either to the water or to something in the water. Something she couldn’t see, and he was smiling. His fingers hesitated, and he closed his eyes.

Listening
.

When he opened them again, he flashed
Up
at her in ASL, then kicked away and tried to swim for the surface. He started sinking instead. Aiden was a worse swimmer than Finn. Now there was panic in his eyes. He needed air, probably more urgently than she did. And the only way to get it was to go back to Mag Mell.

Help me, Tea
, he signed.

She grabbed his arm and swam for the surface of the pool. It had moved away from them while they were underwater, and her own lungs were burning by the time her head broke the surface. She gulped in great breaths of air, while Aiden gagged and choked beside her.

Abby had stopped screaming. She was transforming faster than Eógan had, and the bark that was growing over her body had already covered her mouth. Lucy and the flight of dark sprites were gone. Enkidu was not wrapped around the Dark Man’s head anymore. Two phookas held his arms while another pounded him with its fists. Finn’s twisted form lay very still.

Aiden pulled himself out of the pool, and Fear Doirich turned toward them.

“My daddy gave my song back, bad guy.” Aiden’s voice was raw. “And my mom said to
kick your butt
.” He bent and coughed up water.

Fear sang one note, and Teagan felt Mag Mell start to scream.
Fear Doirich was about to kill her brother
. She charged him like Enkidu had charged Mab, butting her head into his stomach with all her might. It knocked the air out of him, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her away, then backhanded her hard. She tasted coppery blood as she stumbled backwards, tripping over the phooka body that had been Finn. He grunted as she landed on him, and she felt a spark leap between them. It
still was
Finn. He wasn’t quite dead.

Fear started his three-toned song again, and Teagan felt herself being broken by his words. Her arms and legs were becoming useless flippers. Then:

“The Minstrel Boy,”
Aiden sang, his soprano rising sweetly,

“to the war is come
,

In the ranks of death ye will find him.”

Fear Doirich roared, his voice drowning out Aiden’s completely. The phooka beating Enkidu stopped to watch.

“His father’s sword he hath girded on,”
Aiden sang, and the dust of Mag Mell started lifting around him, forming a shadow belt and sword at his side.

“And his wild harp slung behind him.”

Teagan saw it; an Irish harp, graven with twisting shapes like snakes. Mag Mell was dressing her tiny warrior.

“‘Land of Song!’ said the warrior bard
,

‘Tho’ all the world betray thee
,

One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard
,

This faithful voice shall praise thee!’”

“The Minstrel fell!”
The power of the Dark Man’s voice knocked Aiden to his knees. Fear’s voice changed, splitting in three again, the lower notes crooning sickness, singing darkness, bringing death, while the high voice mimicked Aiden’s, high and sweet.

“’Neath the foeman’s chains

Forged to drag that proud soul under.”

Chains formed and started to wrap around Aiden.

“The harp he loved never spoke again,”
the Dark Man crooned.
“For he tore its chords asunder.”

For one breath, Aiden was voiceless . . . and then a raven dropped from the sky. The Irish muse
shifted
before his feet touched the ground, and he put his hand on Aiden’s curly head. Suddenly, Aiden’s voice grew stronger than it had ever been before.

“No more chains shall sully thee
,

Thou world of love and bravery.”

Aiden wasn’t singing for himself now. He was singing over all of Mag Mell.

“My song will make you pure and free

And end your years of slavery!”

He grabbed the end of the chain Fear’s words had formed, shook it out like a whip, then brought his arm back and down. The chain flicked up toward the sky, growing as the energy wave rolled along it. The
crack
was like a mighty crash of thunder, and the sky . . . shattered.

Teagan could see the dark waters and chaos all around them, and then a comet bloomed, and the thunder turned into a roar that drowned both Aiden and Fear Doirich out.

Fear Doirich’s mouth was moving, but Teagan couldn’t hear him over the roar of a mighty engine.
Raynor had finished the Indian Four
. Teagan saw a flash of the angel in a leather jacket, leaning forward over the handlebars. Aviator goggles covered his eyes, and a white scarf trailed behind him.

Then the motorbike collided with Fear Doirich, knocking him—
out of existence
. Out of Mag Mell at the very least, because Raynor, Fear, and the Indian Four were gone.

“Thanks, Thomas.” Aiden wiped his face on the back of his wet sleeve. “That was a really good trap. Zoë gave me a song, too. I’ve got to sing it now.” Thomas nodded and put his hands back on the little bard’s head.

And then Aiden spread his arms and started to sing the Song of Creation. Teagan could feel the ground resonating with the
cantus firmus
, as if Yggdrasil’s roots beneath them were vibrating with the sheer joy of a greater voice. Aiden’s sweet melody tangled with it, now above, now below . . . and the foundations of the multiverse shook.

The moon darkened and turned red as blood, and Mag Mell let loose an ecstasy of cloudless lightning, each bolt mending the shattered sky. Then she hid the red moon with clouds as Aiden’s words changed. A ripple rolled over Teagan, as agonizing as anything Fear Doirich had done to her, but when it passed she had arms again. She wrapped them around Finn. The scepter still pierced his bare chest, pinning him to the ground, but it was Finn’s chest, and Finn’s own face. She covered him as best she could with her body as the rain began to fall like tears.

She could feel the life draining out of him, even as Mag Mell healed, the circuits in his body shutting down.

“Finn!”

His heartbeat slowed, and she knew the instant it stopped. Teagan thought her own heart would stop from the pain.

There was no shock as their lips touched . . . until the
wild
inside her exploded, hunting him, catching him, calling him back. Electricity arced between them, and then his heart was beating with hers, and she held him close, willing life into him.

Mag Mell’s weeping was over and the gray of dawn was all around them when Finn opened his eyes.

“You’re back.”

“Girl”—he reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear— “you’re that good a kisser.”

Thirty-two

“O
W
.” Finn’s hands reached for the scepter, but Teagan caught them.

“Wait. Let me think.”

“Oh, my god.” She looked up to see Abby, Thomas, and Aiden standing over them. Lucy had appeared, too, and was sitting on Aiden’s shoulder. His hair was a little too wet for the tattered sprite.

“Oh, my god,” Abby said again. “He kept those phooka things away from us.”

The phookas
. Teagan whirled to look, but they were gone. A group of dirty, shaggy men had taken their place. Enkidu, the cleanest among them, was holding up ten perfect fingers to the morning sky. She was going to figure out what had happened . . . as soon as Finn was safe.

“He saved our lives,” Abby was saying. “And now—” She put her hand over her mouth.

“Abby,” Teagan said. “He’s not dying.”

“Already did,” Finn rasped. “But I’m over it. Now I’ve just got a great bloody stick through my chest, and it hurts like hell.” He turned his face away and spat blood.

It was frothy. Air was entering the lung from his chest wall
.

Teagan squeezed his hand. “You’ve got a punctured lung. But that’s survivable.
Stop wiggling
.”

“You sound like Mamieo in one of her moods.” Finn was having a hard time finding enough air to force into words. “Can you unpin me, girl? I want to sit up.”

“Thomas, will you help me?”

The
lhiannon-sídhe
put his hands under Finn’s shoulders to lift him while Teagan gripped the scepter to loosen it from the ground and keep it steady.

“We need to leave it in until we can get you to a doctor,” Teagan said when he was upright. “It might cause more damage if we pull it out here.”

“You think I’m getting to a doctor?”

“Yes,” Teagan said. “As soon as Raynor gets back.”

Finn looked down at his chest. “He took hours last time. I don’t think I’m good for it.”

“I don’t think it’s as far.” Teagan hoped that she was right. Mag Mell had doors into all the worlds of creation. “Wherever Raynor went, it’s only one step away.” She turned to look at the woods.

“What’s coming, then?” Finn asked.

“Seamus,” she said. “Cú Faoil, and one Fir Bolg.”

“Get me to my feet.” Finn struggled to his knees, both hands holding the scepter in place so the weight of the golden globe at the end didn’t make it dip. “I don’t want the Scottish idiot to see me sitting down like this.”